


No One's Ever Gonna Need Somebody More Than I Need You

by gala_apples



Series: The Reason That I'm Howling Is You [2]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Anal Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ben Hanscom Has Body Image Issues, Blow Jobs, Child Abuse, Coming Out, Compersion, Crushes, Crying, Declarations Of Love, Developing Relationship, F/M, First Time, Hand Jobs, Hangover, Internalized Homophobia, Leg Kink, M/M, Medical Abuse, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Outdoor Sex, Past Sexual Abuse, Penis In Vagina Sex, Period Typical Attitudes, Polyamory Negotiations, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Stanley Uris Has OCD, Threesome - M/M/M, Timeline Shenanigans, Truth or Dare, Underage Drinking, Watching Someone Sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:06:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26564833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gala_apples/pseuds/gala_apples
Summary: A lot of things can happen in twenty four hours. People can lose their virginity, come out, overdose on placebos, deny their feelings, get blackout drunk, and suggest orgies. Not necessarily in that order.
Relationships: Bill Denbrough/Ben Hanscom, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon/Ben Hanscom/Eddie Kaspbrak/Beverly Marsh/Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris, Eddie Kaspbrak/Stanley Uris, Mike Hanlon/Beverly Marsh
Series: The Reason That I'm Howling Is You [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1811530
Comments: 60
Kudos: 43





	1. My Heart Is Tellin' Me Turn Round

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is currently about 75% written. I will be doing my best to post a new chapter each week until completion. I know exactly where it's going, I just have to get there.
> 
> Written in part to cover the seasonofkink prompt 'taboo'. All chapter titles are from the song [Killer by Valerie Broussard](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gffP-P21tIU), one of two songs on infinite repeat as I wrote this fic.
> 
> In relation to the timeline shenanigans tag, when I wrote the first fic in this series I aged up the characters to match the Stranger Things characters ages, but kept the events of It as happening approximately a year ago. What I didn't realise at the time was how I fucked myself into a corner with Stan's bar mitzvah being a large plot point until I began expanding this 'verse. There's no way to reconcile that bar/bat mitzvahs happen at 13, and it happens in my fic when he's 16. I deeply apologise to anyone of faith for whom this offends.
> 
> I've tagged with 'period typical issues'. I cannot stress this enough, there are period typical slurs, and social stances, and ideas about AIDS.
> 
> Lastly, this is tagged as a movie 'verse fic for a reason. I haven't read the novel, nor even really browsed the wikia. If it didn't happen on screen it didn't happen, and that includes the backgrounds of several characters families. I have made up my own headcanons, which I'm sure are wrong in book canon. *shrugs* It's a movie fic, folks.

Bev is restless in the back seat all morning, and it only gets exponentially worse when they pass the 5 Miles to Derry sign. A hundred miles out Aunt Margaret sighed with the happiness of nearly being done her epic driving task, but at five miles Bev is playing with the flapping leather of the belt woven into her shortalls, trying to restrain herself from the urge to open the door and leap out of the car. If she didn’t break a dozen bones doing so, she could sprint to her boys like nothing.

“Drop me off at Bill’s. Please. I promise I’ll help air out the house later, do my laundry, whatever you need, just... please?”

Bev is aware of how silly Aunt Margaret thinks her connection to her friends is. She never even attempted to fathom how it might feel for Bev to be ripped away from them for an entire summer. It’d just been more proof that even when adults aren’t out to hurt you, they don’t ever understand you. But Bev can give her this: she says yes. She doesn’t make Bev go home and tidy up the leftovers of the summer. She drives down to Witcham street and stops right in front of the Denboroughs.

Ringing the doorbell to get into Bill’s is always weird. Most of her friends' parents require careful handling, except Richie’s, whom she hasn’t ever met. In a full year they haven’t been home long enough for anyone to see them. The Denboroughs are their own certain kind of rough. Maybe they used to be good parents, but now they’re so empty it hurts to look at them. Bill said in his speech that walking into Neibolt was easier than walking into his own house, and Bev understands that now. Mrs Denborough is always at her piano, picking through a song so precisely it’s like she’s playing it with fingers made out of glass. Mr Denborough is more likely to come to the door than she is, but he’ll be back in his home office in seconds, door closed to ward out the world. Bill is the only thing that makes this house feel like there are any humans inside.

Thanks to the gods of little things, it’s Bill who answers the door. Bev’s launching herself into his arms even as he’s saying “Bev? You’re home?”

His hug is so good. It’s like aloe on sunburnt skin, it makes all the brittle scabby parts of her go soft and loose. Bev tucks her head into his neck in the shade of the porch and breathes in his scent. It’s a gentle welcome back to afternoons, after spending her entire summer only coming alive in the evenings and staying up all night.

“Come inside. We have t-t-t-to call the g-g-guys.”

Bill doesn’t bother to introduce her to Mrs Denborourgh in the corner, which yeah, makes sense. Instead he heads straight for the kitchen and calls Mike.

“Bev’s home. Can you bike over any time s-s-s-soon?”

Apparently he can, because Bill’s hanging up and calling Ben next. Mrs Hanscom says Ben’s over at Richie’s. Calling the Tozier house is a jackpot; Richie, Ben, and Stan are all there. They promise to go pick Eddie up. Better that way than Bill trying it over the phone, considering the slim-to-nil chance of Ms Kaspbrak even relaying the message to her precious son.

“They’ll be here soon. D-d-do you want some juice?”

She says sure, and once they both have a cup of fruit punch they go upstairs to his room. Bill’s got more than enough room for seven people to hang out. Hell, he could probably fit a baker’s dozen, if there were that many nice people in the entirety of Derry. He’s got a homework desk against the window and a vanity against the wall with the door, both with a chair. Bev still picks sitting on Bill’s bed. Maybe tomorrow she’ll force herself into rational distances. For today if she could sit in his lap she would. It would be the same for any of the Losers, he’s just the first one she’s encountered.

“Can I see your lit book?” It’s a weak conversation starter, but anything she says to Bill she’ll have to say over again when the others come.

“You didn’t read it yet?”

“It’s been a long summer. I’ll skim it while we’re tanning at the quarry or something. Just hand it over, Denborough.”

Bev pulls her knees up as a table for the book she was supposed to read over the summer. There are four possible essay topics and seeing as she has about three days left before senior year starts she wants to pick the easiest one. The less time and effort spent on this, the better. Bill sits beside her, a few inches away from being elbow to elbow. He’s got his watercolour sketchbook out, spread on his lap, though the paints aren’t out. She’s sure she’ll see them some time this afternoon though. By the start of school at the latest. Bill’s spent junior year getting artsy, hiding the drive of pen and paper and sketchbook less and less.

When the doorbell rings, Bill doesn’t get up. He makes his dad do it, forces him to acknowledge that his son is at home, doing things. Bev wonders but doesn’t ask if that’s the most interaction they’ve had all day. The answer’s not going to be good.

Mr Denborough proves as antisocial to the rest of the Losers as always. Thirty seconds after the doorbell, there’s a thunder of feet up stairs. Bev straightens up at the noise, then bursts into a smile as everyone pours into the room. Either Mike pedaled like the wind or Mrs Kaspbrak was especially difficult to talk into relinquishing Eddie, because all five of her other boys are here now. They’re all so beautiful. Stan, curly haired and pale. Eddie, just starting to have a growth spurt, and Richie now about eight feet taller than the rest of them. Ben, the very definition of comfort. Mike, muscled and full of dreams. Bev loves all of them more than she’s ever dared to say.

They don’t stop once in the room. Richie tugs her to her feet so he can yank her into his army vest covered in band patches. He’s the only one of her boys that smells like cigarettes, a smell she’ll always associate with getting scraps of power back, with feeling better for five minutes. Even if Bev doesn’t smoke much now herself -Aunt Margaret doesn’t allow cigarettes in her house- she’ll never not love that smell. 

Eddie can’t wait for Richie to be done. He hugs her from behind, his arms low on her sides, fanny pack of meds bumpy against her ass. He’s not even complaining about germs, he’s so into the embrace.

“Hey. Our turn, idiots,” Stan complains after a minute. Richie flips Stan off but lets go after a second, after remembering the fundamental lesson of preschool: it’s important to share.

Ben and Stan and Mike all step in at the same time too. Bev’s surrounded by warm flesh and good scents. It’s everything she wished she had in Hawkins.

Once the second hug breaks, everyone scatters. In a pinch probably all seven of them could squeeze onto Bill’s queen sized mattress, but it’d be a terrible idea for a number of reasons, including Richie’s farts and Stan’s discomfort of close contact. Bev goes back to the spot she had before at the top of the bed, pulling her book back to her lap to get it off of the precious bed space. Ben sits at the foot of the bed facing her, and Stan’s at the foot on Bill’s side. Mike sits backwards on the vanity chair, and Eddie is punching Richie’s calves as he keeps trying to put his feet in Eddie’s lap. In Bev’s mind it’s a layout as holy as The Last Supper.

“So how’s the summer been?” She’s seen them, and felt and smelled them. But her separation anxiety isn’t going to be fully satiated until she hears them too.

“We’ve had the same arguments, biked to the same places and done the same activities as ever,” Stan dismisses. “You’re the one that went somewhere. You tell us.”

“Yeah, Bev. Any boy as hot as Eddie’s mom?”

“Fuck off,” Eddie says, punching Richie’s arm.

Bev can feel her face reddening. It’s a signal as obvious as a gunshot.

“Oh my god, there _was_ a really hot boy.” Richie gasps. 

“Y-y-y-you got a boyfriend?” Bill asks. Bill and Ben are both looking at her. They’re all looking at her. Bill and Ben’s crushes have always been the most obvious, but they’re all interested, a little too invested.

“Was he nice?” Mike asks.

Bev drops her head into her knees, ignoring the book that falls and loses her place. She knew this was coming, decided on the two day drive home that she wouldn’t lie about this, but it’s still a lot.

“Come on guys, she can have a secret summer romance if she wants,” Stan says.

He gets protests in two directions at once. From Eddie who says “what is this, Grease?” And Richie saying “no she can’t, details are my proof that a person can find love outside this shithole town.”

And yeah, that’s the fucking thing, isn’t it. They’re looking at her now as proof that they can all get over this jumbled wires, everyone likes everyone thing, and meanwhile Bev doesn’t want to get over jackshit. Bev spent the summer with someone she loved a little, thinking about who she loved a lot. The whole month of August knowing about Steve and Nancy and Jonathan, and wondering what getting everything she wanted at once might feel like.

“If we’re talking about this, preemptive beep beep on Richie for like twenty minutes.”

“What? No fuckin’ way.” Richie’s bold statement is punctuated with elbows in the ribs from the two closest, Eddie and Mike, who’s moved to the floor.

“He means yes, of course we’ll respect your boundaries,” Eddie says, sharply pleasant.

Jesus, where does she even start with this? She’s spent the last two days building scripts in her head, and none of them fit now. Bev is going to have to wing it, and pray she makes it out alive. Wouldn’t be the first time. “So this summer was kind of... Crazy? I don’t know if crazy is the right word. Nothing ever seemed weird, or bad, or any of the bad stuff crazy means. It was just-”

“Absurd,” Bill suggests.

“Yes.” Bill’s so good with watercolours that sometimes she forgets that Bill’s a writer too, that he’s acing English and wants to be published one day.

“So what was absurd?”

Might as well rip off the bandaid. “This summer I got a girlfriend.”

After a pause in which none of the reactions Bev was expecting materialize, Eddie prompts, “and she set you up with a cool guy, or...”

Oh fuck. Okay, they’re starting this far back. Okay. Bev can do this. “No. I got a girlfriend. Her name was Robin. Is still, I guess. It’s not like she’s dead. We just decided early on, on a summer fling, no long distance. So past tense kind of makes sense.”

And there it comes. There are the reactions she was expecting. 

“Oh my god!” Richie yells. “Oh my fucking god! Did she-”

Taking one for the team to avoid depravity Eddie dives on Richie and covers his mouth with a brutally forceful hand. Bill and Ben are quiet as they deal with the implication. It’s Mike who breaks the silence with an answerable question. “Her name’s Robin?”

“Yeah. She’s like a year older than us. Graduated, working at a video rental place. She’s- okay, no. I was gonna say she’s really nice, but she actually reminds me more of Eddie and Stan.”

“I’m nice,” Eddie protests. “I’m nicely barrel wrestling this fucking beast so he doesn’t ask you how you have safe sex with another girl.” 

Richie breaks out of Eddie’s hold long enough to say “not what I was going to ask!” before Eddie muzzles him again. 

“You dated a girl-Stan?”

“I mean, she’s not blond and Jewish. I have some pictures of us on my camera, I’ll show you guys once they get developed.” 

“That’d be nice,” Ben says. He almost even sounds like he means it, as he tries so hard to be happy for her.

“What does muff taste like?” Richie bellows, diving away from Eddie. 

The reactions vary. Mike frowns at him. Eddie resumes his attempts to wrestle a boy almost two feet taller than him. Bill throws a pillow and mostly hits Eddie. Stan points out that asking that implies he doesn’t already know, to which Richie begins to protest that no, he does, but different ones taste different. 

But biggest is Bev’s reaction, because she snaps “I don’t know, what does dick taste like.”

It shocks the room into silence. Richie in particular looks like someone just shot him. It’s supposed to be something they don’t talk about, how they all look at each other and her, but Richie looks at her the least. That once they get away from Derry, they’ll all get girlfriends and wives, except Richie. Calling him out is mean, and the whole room feels it.

“Look, I said my summer was absurd. I didn’t tell you about the second thing. Just listen, okay?” She’s not sure who’s she’s pleading to. Richie, who’s skin is ruddy and who can’t look up from Bill’s grey rug even though Eddie’s gotten off of him and he’s sitting up unobstructed. Or to the group, because she’s done two wrong things in thirty seconds, brought up the weird dynamic _and_ hurt Richie.

“Robin worked at Family Video, and her best friend did too. Steve. I spent like all day every day there. I got to know them really well. And I found out this thing about Steve. He’s dating two people. At the same time. Not cheating. Jonathan and Nancy are dating each other too. Three people, dating.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah, I was surprised too. But it really works for them. Steve and Jonathan like both, so they get both. I think more people like both than are willing to admit it. Like me. I really liked Robin, but I would still date a boy. It’s okay to like both,” she finishes. It’s the bravest Bev’s ever been, It included. Now it’s up to them.

And as one they crumble all around her. 

Richie she had the lowest hopes for, but it still hurts when his sneered reply is “that’s nice for you.” He jumps to his feet and flings himself out of the room, barely coherent enough to get down the stairs on his own two legs rather than tumbling. 

Stan gets up next. “I’m not disgusted or anything, Bev. I’m just going to follow him, make sure he’s safe.”

Stan’s barely out the door when Eddie stands up, sucking hard on his inhaler. “I, uh. I just remembered that mom wants me to pick up some lice treatment cream, so we’re safe. She thought she saw a nit earlier. I’ll see you guys later.”

Half the group gone and all that’s left is awkward silence. Ben and Bill on the bed, Mike still on the floor. All quiet. Not a one of them can admit to the truth, that they all love each other more than could ever be considered okay, and that a group relationship would be the best answer. It _hurts_.

Bev sighs, looking at the three boys left. “Who’s going to make an excuse to leave next?”

“This is my room,” Bill points out.

“Fine. Then I’ll leave.” It was stupid to say anything. Miracles are not easily replicated and what happened this summer qualifies. She should have known better.

“You d-d-d-d-don’t have to g-g-go.” Bill protests.

“No, I know. I’m just tired.” If Bev doesn’t leave now she’s going to cry, and won’t that be mortifying. She needs a night to get used to the Derry norm, harden herself to the old rules of never mentioning or noticing feelings. She’ll get there. She managed for a year already. Everything’s going to be okay. Her summer softened sensibilities will reset to old norms and everything will be okay. It has to be.

“You’re holding Of Mice And Men. Do you want me to help you with the essay?” Ben questions, clawing for a reason for her to platonically stay.

Bev can’t do it. Not yet. She shakes her head. “I’m just gonna go home. Air out the fridge or whatever, and go to bed early.”

Putting the book in Bill’s hands, Bev's done the last thing she has to do before she can go. She knows her voice was cracking, knows her upset is as explosively obvious as Richie’s or Eddie’s. As long as everyone’s following Derry rules, no one will make her talk about it tomorrow. She’s just got to get out of the Denborough house now, before she loses it.


	2. Everybody's Passing But You Slowed Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warning for mild self body shaming from Ben.

Mike leaves to follow Bev, and Ben doesn’t know what to do. He should leave, probably. He’s the last guest. If he goes, Bill can have the room to himself, and time to think. The problem is Ben is so fucking scared to be alone right now. Bev just threw a stick of dynamite at their friendship, and Ben’s trying to cling to something that’s exploding beneath his fingers. He can’t do anything about anyone who’s already left, they’re all gone from him, but he can refuse to move from Bill’s side.

“W-w-w-what just happened?”

“Bev’s bisexual too, and she decided to blow up the Losers.”

“Bisexual too?” Bill asks, making Ben’s heart beat out of his chest. That was a sloppy mistake. Stupid.

“I mean she is bisexual, that’s all. I wonder what the girl she dated is like.” Wonders what personality it was that made Bev finally go for it with someone, when she had so many choices here and couldn’t pick one.

“I d-d-d-don’t care what her ex is like. Do you?” Bill demands. “You love her. You wrote her the poem she keeps in her wall.”

“She kissed you, the day we sliced our reminder into our hand.” Of all the doomed, never to be relationships in the Losers, Bev and Bill is the one with the most real action.

“I th-th-th-th-thu- Fuck! Think about it, sometimes. You k-kissing her.”

“What?”

“Don’t you ever think about me kissing her?” He gets through the sentence without a stutter. Ben wonders why it’s only ever big moments that Bill can get through, never trivial things.

“I- Yes. I mean. I guess.” Bill and Bev as much as anyone else and anyone else, Ben guesses. His research obsession the first year he was here was the history of Derry. Now it’s categorizing everything his friends do, to see if they could possibly feel the same, or if he’s just reading into things. Being sure they feel the same, and yet never sure enough to risk what Bev has. It’s been an endless mental occupation.

“I think about kissing her, and t-touching her. And making love. And I think about you making love to her too. A-a-and never once would we scare her and make her think about her dad. We’d make it always safe and full of love and okay.” 

Ben always hopes that too, when he thinks about Bev at night. He can imagine something rougher with all the boys, but with Beverly it’s always the sweetest love making he can conceive. She grew up with sex being pure evil, she deserves so much better than that.

“Ben,” Bill whispers, kneeling on the bed looking at him. “Tell me how much you love her.”

He’s so scared of losing everyone his stomach is churning with it, but Bill is here, and Bill understands him. It’s safe, somehow, to surge forward and press the lips of his fat face to Bill’s. Ben angles back, just for a second, to say “so much. Bill, so much. She’s my January embers,” before making contact again.

Out of all the people in the world, Ben never thought his first kiss would be Bill Denborough. In his fantasies, maybe, but in the same way you’d think about kissing Donnie Wahlburg or Tom Cruise. It’s as nice as he’s dreamed it could be. Bill smells good and when they open their mouths fully and let their tongues explore, tastes like fruit punch. 

He knows it’s a big move, dropping his hands down to Bill’s ass, but he can’t help himself. He’s thought about this so often, with Bill and with everyone else. They’re the case photos it’d be too dangerous to post on the wall. His parents allowed three walls of photocopies of dead kids and tragedies, but a love septagon is a bit much even for them. Ben glides his tongue against Bill’s and massages Bill’s ass as gently as he can. He can’t imagine it getting any better than this.

Except it gets better. Bill doesn’t break the kiss but his left hand falls off Ben’s shoulder only to land on the outside of his shorts. Bill is almost touching his dick, only two layers of cloth between him and the real thing. Ben could hyperventilate, if his mouth wasn’t so firmly attached to Bill’s.

It feels a lot like Bill really is touching his dick when he starts moving his hand on the fabric. Ben can barely feel the atom thin fabric of his shorts against the way Bill’s fingers are moving on him. His fingers curl a little on Bill’s ass, digging in more than is probably kind.

“That feels really nice,” Ben has to tell him. 

“C-c-c-can I touch you all the way?”

Ben nods, and Bill raises his hand to slip it past the waistband of his shorts. Unfortunately they’re pretty tight on him, and Bill’s hand doesn’t get far.

“Do you want to take them off?”

It’s difficult, standing and pulling his shorts off in front of Bill like this. They’ve gone swimming in undies in the quarry a dozen times this summer, but always in the context of everybody pretending to be platonic. The larger the group, the safer it is to make sure no lines get crossed. Now he’s stripping down with the intention of Bill looking at him, and it feels entirely different. He feels fatter now. He feels all the ways his body isn’t like any of the other guys’. But what’s the alternative? Refusing to take them off? And if he does that, Bill will have to stop touching him. Bev will have broken everything and for nothing. No, Ben’s not letting negativity win.

“Take yours off too?” Ben asks, toes curling into the fluff of the area rug. Anything to not be alone in this. 

By the time they’re back on the bed they’re both in t-shirts, naked from the waist down. Bill doesn’t go back to his knees, he lays on his side, so Ben follows him down to the mattress. His pillowcase smells fresh, like lilacs. Ben remembers going shopping with Bill to get this detergent, doing the house errands for the hundredth time this year because it’s a way to prove self reliance and therefore not need to force an interaction. Ben’s not sure who has the worse form of neglect; Richie, who’s parents are out of state twenty five days a month, who doesn’t have a choice, or Bill, who has a mutual sort of neglect so all Denboroughs can avoid stronger emotions or memories. Either way, he hurts for them.

It’s the wildest sensation in the world to have someone’s hand on your dick. Ben’s mind is spinning with it, the way four fingers and a thumb feel wrapped around the most intimate part of his body. He knows already that there will be a poem about this moment, even if he has to burn the postcard to keep it safe. Bill’s wrist bumps into his belly with each stroke, and Bill doesn’t even seem to care. After a decade of being the guaranteed least attractive person in a room it breaks his heart in the most refreshing way to be loved enough to be desired.

Ben returns the action, of course. He can’t focus enough until he spills over Bill’s fingers, but the moment he’s come Ben tightens his grip on Bill. He strokes him with wide open eyes, cataloguing each reaction as it comes. Ben wants to see what he likes best, the speed and the grip strength and the placement of his thumb, so he can keep doing the best of all of it. That’s the point of sex, after all, to make someone feel the best they can feel until they erupt with bliss.

Ben’s not sure what people do after sex. According to his parents, you eat, or commune with the spirits, or do another bong rip, whatever cements your connection with the person you’ve just shared yourself with. If their logic holds -which it often doesn’t, the Hanscoms are meant for a shared agro-hippie community, not small town Republican life- Ben should continue bonding with Bill over their mutual love of Bev.

“We could make it work, couldn’t we? Me, you, and Bev?” Ben feels desperate for it. He always thought it’d work out in Bill’s favour, because he’s skinny and handsome and smart, and the world owes him after Georgie and his broken husk parents. Bev’s friendship destroying idea of having both screams to his deepest needs.

“I don’t know.”

It’s not the answer Ben wants to hear. “We could. That’s what she said she saw, right? Two boys and a girl dating?” 

“It d-d-d-doesn’t matter. If we do, what about the o-o-other four Losers?”

“I don’t know. They can all date girlfriends if they’re not interested.” Ben shouldn’t have to be alone because Eddie and Richie are so neurotic. Especially knowing now what it feels like to touch someone. He can’t lose this when he’s just gained it.

“No, that’d be h-h-horrible. You know it.”

“I don’t-”

Bill sits up, shaking his head. “It’d be awful and you know it. I felt awful when she was quoting a love poem I didn’t write. I know you felt awful when you found out I kissed her. Think about Richie and Eddie and Stan and Mike holding hands with other girls, or blowing off the clubhouse to go on a date, or inviting other people to the quarry. It’s awful.”

Ben thinks about Stan getting back into his parents' good graces by dating a synagogue girl, or Richie dating a girl with a filthy mouth and he feels like he wants to cry. He can’t say Bill is wrong. As much as he wants them, he equally wants them to not want others. It’s selfish, but it’s honest.

“The last year worked because it was balanced, no one making the first move. If we split like this we’ll never have that friendship again.” 

It’s the truth. If next week he and Bev and Bill are dating, there’s no way all their friends with heads up their asses will react well. They’ll separate, like the last time after Neibolt, and this time not have an ancient demon to pull them back together. After a year of friendship Ben doesn’t think he can stand that. “So what does that mean for us then?”

“I d-d-don’t know.”


	3. All The Girls That Came Before Were Easy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes for this chapter: internalised homophobia, jesus christ so much internalised homophobia! It's a bad headspace, yo.
> 
> Also, this is the shortest chapter of any of them. I promise next week's is triple the length.

It’s been maybe an hour since Richie managed to get Stan off his ass, and he hasn’t stopped pedaling yet. He’s no Bill, content to spend an entire day biking around the entirety of Derry. He doesn’t have a boner for his bike. He just doesn’t want to go home. He doesn’t want to go to the clubhouse, or the arcade, or the park. He doesn’t want to go anywhere he’s sat and obsessed about this. Which pathetically doesn’t leave many places. It feels like all he’s thought about since fifth grade is how much he likes things he shouldn’t like. 

It was bad enough when it was just Big Bill and Stan the Man and Eduardo. Bill’s optimism and warmth for other human beings, despite the world being generally shit. Stan’s dry humor. Eddie’s dogged persistence, even when he’s proveably wrong. Not that it’s all just personality, Richie’s hardly that moral. He can’t be one of those upstanding young gentlemen in a war movie, platonically and nobley in love with his men. No, it’s also about the way he could stop Bill’s stammer with a cock down his throat, and eat Stan’s ass, and lift Eddie’s feet off the ground fucking him against the wall. Bad enough to have sick, repugnant crushes on his three best friends. Now there’s Ben and Mike too. Kind, constantly gift giving Ben, smarter than the rest of them. Mike, the best at encouraging the rest of them to follow their dreams. He wants to fuck Ben’s fat warm thighs. He wants to get a handjob with those farm-calloused palms. Christ. It never ends.

Now there’s even somehow Bev. Bev, and her bravery, and her red mane of hair that Richie wants between his fingers. It should make Richie feel better because he can ignore all the wrong feelings if he can focus on Bev. But he can’t. His stupid bullshit brain won’t let go of any of the other thoughts. Not any of them, not even one boy over the others. They’re all crammed in his brain, all at once. A year ago he was at the kissing bridge and he only carved R+ because there were too many others to fit. The feelings have only gotten worse.

Richie crosses the street. He’ll go straight for a few blocks, then maybe turn left. Or maybe he’ll turn a one eighty and go exactly the way he came. He doesn’t exactly have a route planned out. He just needs to keep moving. Maybe if he moves fast enough, his brain will be diverting enough power to his body that he stops thinking.

Richie didn’t know there was a queer oasis in the middle of Indiana. That’s nice for her, but it’s totally fucking irrelevant to him. Richie lives in Derry, where queers get beat up. Queers die. Even Eddie thinks queers get AIDS and die. The best thing Richie ever got for being a fag was a touch of hands, an inkling that there could be mutual interest. Richie couldn’t have hoped in his wildest dreams that a kiss might have happened, but he’d gathered all his courage and asked the boy to play a second game with him. What had happened? Bowers intervened and sent him running, and It used its reality shattering powers to torment him about it. Sent a nail mouthed giant Paul Bunyon to ask him for a kiss. And Bev what, just wants him to admit to it? As a secret it’s already messed up his life enough. Changing everything by saying it out loud will only make it worse.

Except things have already changed. Bev didn’t give him the choice, just brought it up in front of everyone. He’d been making a joke about lesbians, which was totally cool and nothing on her, everyone likes lesbians, duh, and she’d gotten mad enough to rip his entire life apart. Richie’s known for a long time how tough she is, seen her shove a fire poker through a demon clown’s eye socket. He just didn’t know she could be vindictive.

So he couldn’t stay in Bill’s room, where he’s thought about bending him over the vanity table with the mirror and making him watch his own expressions as he gets fucked, knowing how disgusted Bill’d be if he knew. He couldn’t bike back to his house where he’s spent many a night jerking off imagining Stan and his long fingers, or to the clubhouse where every time Eddie crawls into the hammock with him he wants to combust. Go to the quarry and think of Mike’s flawless skin sparkling with water droplets, to the library and imagine blowing Ben in the stacks, to the park where he wants to go on a picnic with Bev then eat her out under the table. Richie can’t be anywhere that reminds him of them, because chances are pretty fucking high he’s lost all of them except Bev, and he might be too furious at her for what she’s wrought to hang out with her for a bit.

So he’s just gonna keep biking, until he’s struck with an epiphany about how he’s going to make it through the rest of his life. Or hey, maybe he’ll get lucky and get struck by lightning. Then he won’t have to deal with anything.


	4. The Only Way Out Of This Thriller

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My girlfriend has a headcanon that Stan has OCD. As someone who's been diagnosed for like 15 years, and hospitalised once, I'm all for mental health representation in films, and went with that here. Eddie is less diagnosable, more just totally scarred from his mom's Munchhausen's/FIDA. So specific warnings for internalised homophobia, serophobia, and abusive parenting.
> 
> Also, here's to hoping that Eddie's inhaler is a placebo too, not actually filled with albuterol, because it's entirely possible to overdose on it. Taking a puff of a rescue inhaler every time you feel anxious is actually super unhealthy, who could have guessed?

Eddie’s pissed. He’s so pissed he can barely breathe. He’s had a million things trigger his asthma over the years; pollen, cold, humidity, dander, the cigarettes Richie and Bev share. The world is a dangerous place for people with compromised lungs. Apoplectic rage is a new one though. Eddie shakes his inhaler, exhales, and inhales as he times the puff. It doesn’t help as much as a rescue inhaler should. 

He didn’t start off this angry. An hour ago he wasn’t angry, just desperate to get away from Bill's bedroom and the apocalypse that had just occurred. He doesn’t even remember what he told them to leave. Usually he’s good at keeping track of excuses, in case Mommy or someone else mentions it later. Right now though it’s too much. He’s too close to boiling over to think of anything else.

He’d left, and he’d turned west to go home, Stan chasing after Richie’s frantic pedalling to the east. He’d let himself into the house, grateful beyond words that Mom was at work and he had the room to pace without being questioned.

He’d still been pacing when someone had knocked on the door. Pacing, and full of some unwanted realisations. Eddie’d answered it in fury, relishing the chance to scream at some unwitting door to door salesman. Except it hadn’t been anyone available for lashing out at. Stan had been at the door, sweaty from biking in the mid afternoon summer heat.

Eddie lets him in, of course. As a good friend, he has to. He goes to the kitchen to get a glass of water for Stan, uses the tongs to get a few ice cubes out for him. It’s a little arcade claw game for his liking, but far more polite than using his fingers on someone else’s drink. Eddie requests no ice for sodas at restaurants because he doesn’t trust the way people handle their cubes. 

“So you seem almost as upset as Richie. He wouldn’t let me go with him. I thought you’d be the next that needed help, and I’m clearly right.”

“Of course I’m upset Stan! Jesus fucking Christ, man.”

“Why though? Tell me why.”

Why. Stan wants to know why. Like there aren’t so many reasons. Bev betrayed them and their mutual unspoken promise of keeping the platonic fiction. Eddie likes terrible things. Richie is out there somewhere having a mental breakdown and Eddie can’t help. Even if he was near him, would he be brave enough to talk? When It attacked him in the basement of the pharmacy, Eddie ran. He thinks about that a lot. It wasn’t his mom, except it was, and when there were two filth covered straps left and the leper was almost on them, he left her to die. What kind of person is he if he can let his mom die but is willing to risk the open sores of AIDS and the brain damage of syphilis and the urethral infections of chlamydia just for a kiss or an orgasm? Rhetorical question. Eddie knows the answer. A bad one. It makes him _bad_ , and unworthy of love. He says as much.

“So you think wanting love makes you dirty and unworthy of it?”

“If the shoe fits, Stanley,” Eddie snaps.

“When Richie was the only one to show up at my bar mitzvah-”

“Yeah, I’m real sorry about that, Stan.” He’s said it a few times since, but he means it. Stan should have had at least the three of them backing him up, even if Bev and Mike and Ben were too new of friends, not close enough yet. Instead Eddie had been too pissed about his broken arm to fight his grounding and Bill’d been too pissed about Stan being one of the first to give up on Georgie. Richie’d been the only one there to help Stan through the partial repudiation of his faith, according to him even leading a standing ovation.

“I’m over it. I’m basically exiled now anyway, the ceremony was hardly the first or last straw. My point is when he did I talked about the inability to change and holding secrets and all the other ugly stuff in your head being what shapes you into an adult and how I’m not ready to be that man yet. The man of my disappointments. So I guess what I’m asking is, are you?”

Eddie sucks on his inhaler again, two solid puffs.

“Richie’s close. He’s really close to being a miserable cynical secretive adult.”

“He’s not secretive!” Eddie shouts in dispute. “He’s got one secret, and even an idiot knows what it is, because we all have the same fucking one!”

Eddie huffs his albuterol again. It makes him sick to think of it. If Richie’s...that way, and they're all like Richie... then he’s... Mommy’s going to hate him. She’ll be so disgusted and disappointed.

“I know that. You know that. Does Richie know that? Because It scared him with a coffin with him inside, and missing flyers. He’s scared that no one would miss him, so he tries so obnoxiously to be seen but it’s all bullshit jokes. So people see him the way he thinks they need to, not how he actually is. He’s fucked up.”

“We’re all fucked up! Or do you not think about It every day? Because I do!”

Stan refuses to be sidetracked. “Richie’s fucked up about being gay, Bev excepted. And the only way he’s going to deal with it is if all of us figure out our own shit.”

“Once again Richie’s the stupid fucking asshole.” Fuck, Eddie’s so fuckin’ mad.

Stan shrugs. “Whatever you have to call him to deal with this. Because Bev’s right, it’s about time we all deal with it.”

“What am I supposed to do, tell him he’s not going to get AIDS? Because I’ve spent years seeing blood and ranting about it, since I was a preteen, so he’s hardly going to believe me now. Timing would be a bit suspicious, don’t you think?”

“How about more along the lines of ‘if you get it I’ll still love you.’?”

The words cut deep. Because that's the truth if it. He abandoned his mom when she wasn’t even ill to avoid the leper, and now he could honestly tell Richie he’d love him with poison in his veins. He’s a bad son. Eddie tries so hard to be a good son, tries every day to support her the way every other man has abandoned her, and he’s a failure. And when she finds out why, it’ll be permanent. She’ll be so mad about him risking his life like this she’ll never forgive him.

“Why does it even stupid matter if he likes us, or if we like each other? Maybe they’re all content to swing and do whatever crazy shit Bev picked up in Hawkins, but I can’t. Sex is dirty. You’re the only one who understands that. So what if I love him, or any of you? I can’t just, just _do that_.”

Stan doesn’t deny his equal desire for sanitation. He and Stan have always been on the same wavelength, a force for light against Bill and Richie’s stereotypical childhood boy messiness. Instead he offers a solution. “So what if we do it first. Do it clean. Then we can build up a tolerance until we can handle Mike or Richie’s unwashed hands, or, or spitty mouths or whatever.”

Eddie’s stunned. There’s a huge difference between thinking dirty thoughts about all the sex he’d be willing to have, and Stan offering to have sex with him. There’s a difference between Bev pointing out they’re all probably bi, and Stan danced-with-Diana-at-homecoming Uris coming onto him, a boy. Being on the other side of that chasm is literally dictionary definition stunning.

“First like now?”

“Can you see any way in which waiting around helps? The last time we had a big group blow-out it took a month to patch things up. You remember how much that sucked? And that was before we got all codependent and fell in love. I don’t want to do that over again. I don’t think Richie can get isolated again without fucking breaking.”

Eddie gets really sick sometimes, of how everything’s always about Richie. If not him, Bill or Bev. It’s never about Eddie and Stan, and how they used logic on a situation, and were gee golly willakers _fucking right_. No one ever admits it when either of them are right, which happens quite frequently because holy shit of course the logical ones in the group can see things clearer than the dramatic ones. Ben and Mike are neutral ground, more stable but also more prone to try to compromise with lunatics rather than put their foot down and argue. Eddie shouldn’t have to lose his virginity to anyone to help save Richie’s sanity. 

But hey, he shouldn’t have had to have waded through greywater looking for murdered children, or gotten a broken arm being thrown through a condemned house, or climbed down a well one handed. You do things when your friends need you. If Stan thinks Eddie needs to accept being sexual, and bi, for Richie to not throw himself off a bridge, well, it’s not the worst thing he’s ever done. 

“I don’t want to kiss until we brush our teeth. I have spare toothbrushes in the cupboard.”

Stan nods. “Makes sense.”

They leave the living room and enter the main floor bathroom together. Eddie likes it much better than the basement bathroom. It’s got carpeting, like the rest of the basement. How his mother allows such a sanitization hazard, Eddie doesn’t know. He only goes down there when he’s desperate for privacy. But Mommy’s gone for a few hours still, and even if she were home she’d probably be proud of him for convincing a friend to brush their teeth between meals. Gum disease can lead to heart disease. He passes a new brush to Stan to open, spreads the nail sized mint Colgate on his bristles and goes to town.

Three minutes later, suds spat out and tap run to not leave nasty residue in the sink, Eddie turns to Stan. “I’m. I’m going to kiss you now. Promise you don’t have any cold sores?”

Stan shakes his head. “I’m clear.”

Kissing is really pretty nice, when it’s guaranteed clean. Eddie’s on his tiptoes and Stan’s slumped over a bit, but their lips meet all the same, and Stan’s hands quickly move to his ass to support his semi-precarious stance. He tastes like mint, of course, and despite the dried sweat, Stan still smells like coconut. Eddie set Stan a SPF sunscreen wearing regime because tanning makes scars worse, and Stan’s got a bunch of facial scars from the painting woman version of It at Neibolt. It’s not the most normal combo, but it’s getting to Eddie because it’s so Stan.

It’s Stan who stops them from going any further. Eddie’s already losing all of his morals, becoming as filthy as he is in his nightmares, because he wants to kiss Stan and maybe put a hand down his pants. It’s Stan who rears back and says “we both need to have a shower before we go to your bedroom.”

Eddie thinks about the logistics of what’s about to happen. Presumably. Better to plan for the most abhorrent and get lucky. “You have first shower. I’ll go to the pharmacy. I can pick up anything and say my mom requested it and they’ll believe it. I could say she needed plutonium to get rid of my under eye bags and they’d allow it.”

“You don’t need to buy condoms. I have one in my wallet. Richie insisted.”

“Of course he did. Prick. I still have to go though. The soap is under the sink, grab one of the tiny shell shaped ones. And don’t use all the hot water, I’ll have to shower too. And- and clean everywhere.”

Eddie leaves Stan in the bathroom to begin his shower to go for his bike on the porch. He’ll have to put it away in the shed before Mommy comes home, otherwise it’s a tripping hazard, and a fire hazard. He knows it makes sense, he was just so upset coming in the house that he didn’t care yet. But things are looking up now, maybe. If neither of them lose their nerve.

The bike ride to the pharmacy on Main is less than ten minutes. Eddie’s not even winded by the time he’s there, and his asthma has been kicking his butt this afternoon. Eddie locks his bike to the rack inside, then starts walking up and down the aisles. If he’s going to have gay sex, there are preparations that need to be made. The best way to be clean up there would be an enema, Eddie knows. It just makes sense, it’s the perfect technique to flush oneself out. But he’s pretty sure if he attempts it he’s going to give himself a huge panic attack at the thought of shitwater and destroy any of the progress he’s made tonight. He keeps walking.

In the end Eddie gathers the needed lubricant along with a fever reducer and a thermometer, hoping to imply the right thing. Embarrassing, almost as bad as Greta saying he has a tumor on his dick, but better than the truth. When it comes to the Kaspbraks, embarrassing is the boring standard. He needs this to be boring. He’s got two dangerous links should they become interested, Greta to gossip at the high school and Mr Keene to his mom. There’s not a chance in hell either abide by patient-pharmacist confidentially, not with Mom’s bribing.

He gets out of the store alive, by the skin of his blushing teeth. The bike ride back is hardly memorable, except for where it’s his first time on a bike with marital aids in his basket. When he opens the front door Eddie can’t hear the water running, but that’s fair. It’s probably been close to twenty minutes.

“Stan? Stan, where are you?”

“In your room,” Stan calls back.

Stan’s on the bed, door open, revealing bare chest and towel wrapped hips to the world. Eddie’s not sure why that makes his heart race with panic, Mom’s not home. Nobody’s home, it’s just them. It’s okay for Stan to be almost naked, and visible, and attractive. Nobody’s home and nobody’s watching, Eddie can want to lick his lips looking at Stan.

Instead he puts the plastic bag on the floor just inside the doorframe and says, “I’m gonna go shower now.”

“Okay. See you soon.”

Eddie is thorough in his scrubbing. He makes sure every inch of skin gets covered in sudsy lather, from his hairline to his elbows to the arches of his feet. He pays special attention to his hands, making sure to soap up each finger and check under his nails for crud. When he can no longer avoid it, he takes the showerhead off the wall and twists it to spray directly at his ass crack. He’s not sure who’s going to be doing what, but they should both be clean everywhere.

He steps out of the shower and pulls the green bathsheet off the rack. He rubs it over his face and arms before wrapping it around his body, tucking in the corner so it stays up by itself. Eddie spends the next few minutes blow drying his hair. It’s bad to put wet hair on a pillow, it can lead to mold, and breathing in mold has very serious effects on the human body.

Stan is still on his bed. Eddie gathers all his courage and steps towards his bed until their legs are intertwined. He pulls Stan’s beautiful scarred face up and bends down for a kiss. This time Eddie opens his mouth wide enough to slip his tongue into Stan’s. He knows it’s pushing Stan to his limits to swap spit like this, but they’re making it through their neurosis together.

After a minute of kissing Eddie finds himself sitting on Stan’s knee, towel spreading out wide as his legs splay on either side of Stan’s thigh. Eddie can’t stop his mouth from moving on Stan’s, doesn’t know if he’s capable of not kissing him any longer, but he can pull his focus enough to glide his thumbs over the smooth thin skin of his collarbones. Before the shower Stan smelled like coconut. Now it’s just fragrance free hypoallergenic soap for dry skin, same as Eddie. It’s a safe scent, proof that Stan is as clean as he can be. 

Eddie loses time as he straddles his best friend and kisses him like nothing bad could come of it. He never wants to let go. But eventually the heady fog of making out clears a little, and Eddie remembers he’s not here for this. Or not just this. He has to give himself no way to back out of the new idea of who he is, or he’ll crumple when the pressure gets too strong. Apologise and deny left and right, try to force everything back to the heterosexual normal. He knows he’s not a strong man.

Eddie strokes his hand down Stan’s chest to the edge of the blue towel and curls his fingertips into the edge. He pulls until it’s open, the terrycloth sagging to either side of Stan’s waist. Stan’s hard, dick red and practically pointing at him. Eddie takes a deep breath and makes contact with it. He curls his fingers around Stan’s length, leaving just the head of it looking at him.

“Oh. Oh my god, Eddie.”

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, he could get into hearing someone idolise him like that. It makes sense now, all the people risking contamination every day. It’s still a dangerous choice, but it’s understandable, if everyone else feels the same surge of lust and confidence from a lover moaning over what you’ve done.

Eddie jacks his hand once or twice down Stan’s dick before releasing him completely and standing up. He fishes the all important lube out of the Keene’s Pharmacy bag and kicks the rest of it to the side. A few steps away from the bed Eddie uses his free hand to tug off his own hunter green towel. Stan’s eyes flit to his dick, and Eddie can only cross his fingers mentally and pray that Stan finds him as appealing. 

The moment he gets back to the edge of the bed Eddie resettles on Stan’s knee. Eddie pours a little lake of lube onto his left hand, clicks the cap closed with his thumb, then tosses the bottle onto the bed so he can rub his palms together. It’s silkier than sunscreen, or aloe, or Vick’s Vaporub. It’s almost like vegetable oil, like when Mom’s making chicken fried steak. He recenters his left hand on Stan’s dick, which leaves the right for his own. Richie’s insistence on arcade games has left them all somewhat ambidextrous, so Eddie’s not all that surprised that he can manage the wanking movement with both hands at once.

“Hey. Hey, let me touch you, okay?”

Eddie moves his hand off his dick and Stan replaces it. His palm soaks up the excess lube quickly enough, and then Stan’s stroking with the best of them. Eddie wonders if any part of this is hurting Stan’s brain, his particularities. He hopes not. Stan’s got more sensory issues than he does, not to mention a different set of post-It trauma reactions. But they’re clean and nothing is scented or loud. Everything is good. Even with another man’s hand on his dick, everything is good.

It’s still not enough. It’s the most intimate thing Eddie’s ever done, besides maybe wading into a lake of shitwater and garbage to save a girl. It’s still not enough though. He can imagine himself talking himself out of finding a handjob gay. He already knows the excuses he’d use. He needs to do better.

Eddie stands up and walks backwards a few steps, enough to fully see Stan. “Rock Paper Scissors for who’s the girl?”

“You know that not how it works, right?”

“No, uh, I don’t know _shit all_ about gay goings on, except what my mom says, and what other people in Derry say. How do you know so much?” Eddie can feel his tone quickening, getting blunter. He doesn’t want to hurt Stan, but this is all very stressful. Feeling mad about it makes it easier.

“I don’t know _lots_. Just kind of the whole point is that there’s no girl.” 

“Don’t remind me.”

“Don’t remind you there’s no girl here? Would you want Bev here right now?”

No, definitely Eddie wouldn’t. Girls bleed sometimes, and they can get pregnant, and usually STDs have stronger effects on girls. That's all just a little too much right now. Rather than concede the point he asks again, only changing the game. “Heads or Tails for receiving?”

Stan shrugs. “It doesn’t really matter to me. Tails I guess.” 

Eddie grabs the first coin he can fish out of his piggy bank and tosses it into the air. God hates him. It’s Heads, the gleaming Washington clear to see.

“It’s just a coin, we don’t have to follow it,” Stan says, trying to reassure him. Some of Eddie’s thoughts must be showing on his face, if Stan thinks he needs reassurance.

“No. If I’m gonna be this way, I’m not less this way if I fuck you. I’ll be right back.” 

Eddie ducks into the bathroom to wash his hands again. Coins -money in general- are filthy, hundreds or thousands of hands touching them before the currency is retired. Eddie’s not touching Stan with dirty hands. On the way out he grabs the last supply they’ll need from under the sink -two nitrile gloves from the hundred pack they always have, you never know when something’ll become too contaminated to be touched- and heads back to his room.

“We’re going to do this on my back,” Eddie announces.

“Whatever works best for you, man,” Stan coaxes him.

Eddie lies on his back on the middle of the bed. His legs are spread enough that Stan can sit between them, Eddie’s calves on his hips. Stan spreading lube on his blue gloved fingers looks intimidating as hell, and he hasn’t even touched him yet. Eddie takes a second to remind himself that gay people do this on purpose, that they like it. There has to be a reason to risk it. He wants to understand, wants to feel relief that tearing his old life apart is worth it. This isn’t tossing a fanny pack that he can later retrieve from scrub brush if he needs to. This is no coming back territory. He wants the change, he’s just scared to be wrong. Stan gets the nerves. More than any of the other Losers could, Stan understands where Eddie’s brain is. He doesn’t move a muscle until Eddie bends his leg to the side more and tells him to start.

It’s not the first time Eddie’s had a finger inside him. Mom’s made him get physicals before. Lots of them, so they can monitor his baseline. But Stan doesn’t ask him to cough, and avoid eye contact. The hand that’s not inside him isn’t angled so a watch can be checked and toes can be tapped. Instead Stan is rubbing slick circles on his inner thigh, maybe subconsciously helping Eddie keep his legs spread and relaxed.

When Stan progresses to two fingers, something happens. He finds the same gland Eddie’s doctor looks for, but he touches it in a way different way than Jenkins ever does. Stan curls his fingers, or something, Eddie’s not entirely sure what, just knows it’s like getting hit in the dick with a rock, but good. It’s an explosive, shattering not-pain.

“Stan. Stan. Stan. Please. Can you do that again?”

“This?” Stan asks. It’s not teasing, not a way to provoke Eddie into begging. Richie and Mike and Bev would probably do that. Bill, maybe, if he could manage to dirty talk through the stammer. But Stan’s not like that. Stan is genuinely asking if him brushing Eddie’s prostate is the right thing to do.

“Don’t stop. Yes, there. Don’t stop.”

Stan fingerfucks him with two, then three. Eddie’s so close to coming. He hasn’t touched his cock in ages, the fingers pumping in him are just so good. Mom always tells him to let his body express how it needs to, if he needs to cry or puke to go right ahead, he’s too delicate to hold it in. Right now his body is saying he needs to be spread open even further.

“You- You can fuck me now.”

“Are you sure?”

“Don’t make me say it again,” Eddie asks of him. 

Stan’s fingers leave him with an embarrassing noise. He knee-walks in closer and pulls Eddie’s hips up. Before Eddie can complain about back strain Stan reaches up, grabs one of his pillows and tucks it under him. He gets lube on it, so Eddie will have to throw it out later. That or hide it in his closet, if this works out and all of a sudden Eddie needs a sex pillow. In the silence Eddie can easily hear the condom ripping open, even if his eyes are closed and he doesn’t see it being applied.

His cock feels big, bluntly pressing against Eddie’s hole. Eddie keeps his eyes closed and breathes, mentally says goodbye to his mom and hello to Richie, he’s made his choice, and lets Stan push his way inside him.

It’s a lot. It’s a lot, and Stan isn’t hitting his prostate because he’s frozen. Eddie looks down his stomach at Stan, who’s looking at where his dick is inside him. “It’s okay? I’m clean?” If it’s not, if he isn’t, he doesn’t know what he’ll do. Cry, maybe? No way will Stan keep on going, nor would Eddie expect him to.

“Yes, yes it’s okay. Just try to relax, okay?”

“I’m not having an anxiety attack,” Eddie counters. He’s committed now, and not yet worried about the consequences. Maybe tomorrow he will be, but right now he doesn’t care about anything except Stan hurrying up.

“No. Relax like you’re really tight. Maybe I didn’t finger you enough? I’m sorry if- Should I pull out?”

“Stan if you pull out I will kill you.” It’s literally the opposite of what he wants. 

“Relax then. I can’t fuck you if it’ll hurt you.”

That is exactly the annoying kind of thing a best friend would say. Eddie sighs then tries to focus on loosening his taut muscles, just like he’s got a charley horse after running for too long. Finally Stan deems him ready, and starts fucking him. It takes precisely two strokes for Eddie to be fully hard again.

It’s good. It’s good it’s good it’s _soooo_ good. Eddie’s not sure if he’s saying it out loud, he thinks he is. He thinks he’s telling Stan how good it feels to be fucked, how good his body feels with sunbursts going off in his ass every three seconds, and how good his brain feels knowing he gave up on the life his mom wants for him and got something decent in return for that loss. Maybe not all sex is an epiphany like this. Or maybe he’s thinking too highly of himself, and every virgin sees the shape of the universe in their first round of sex. Whatever the case, Eddie knows it won’t last long. No mortal being can withstand something like this for long.

He comes first. Eddie comes digging his heels into Stan’s sides and clenching his fists. He comes all over himself. It’s a weird sensation. When he’s masturbating he knows when he’s about to come and has a tissue at the ready so things don’t get messy and out of hand. With Stan the climactic feelings lasted too long for Eddie to be able to tell when his body meant it.

“Can I finish? Is it okay- Eddie, is it okay if I finish?”

Eddie can be magnanimous. Maybe not as much as Ben or Bill, but still. He can find ways to be nice, sometimes. “By all means...”

Eddie lies there, body melting with his post orgasm hormones. People give him shit for his encyclopedic knowledge of diseases and the body, but Eddie’d be willing to bet he’s the only one in his grade who could list what hormones those are, and what they do specifically. The prolactin’s making him sleepy, and the oxytocin is making him fall in love with Stan. Like he wasn’t already. He loves him enough to let Stan going, stroking in and out until his face screws up and he comes.

Decoupling is a bit of an ordeal. Pulling out hurts a little, and it’s weird how he feels empty afterwards. And Stan has to deal with getting a wet condom knotted up like a balloon. He clearly doesn’t want to be touching it, and Eddie can’t blame him. But eventually the deed is done, apart from disposing of the condom somewhere his mom won’t find it, the top of any trash can obviously not an option.

Stan must realise the same, because although he folds it up in a few wadded up kleenex, he doesn’t drop the whole thing in Eddie's wastepaper basket. Instead he places it on the nightstand with a wrinkled up face. “Do you want to share the shower this time?”

“Yeah. That’d be nice,” Eddie answers. It maybe won’t be the most efficient, but it’ll be fun. Eddie wants every minute of fun he can get before Mommy comes home and he has to go back to hiding and hoping something doesn’t slip.


	5. My Tongue Is Sharper Than A Switchblade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another Richie POV, so once again chapter warnings for internalized homophobia, as well as assumed homophobia of others. Poor societal views of the homeless. Underage drinking & the poor choices made during.

Contrary to what the town thinks of the elder Toziers leaving Richie on his own, Richie's actually got his shit pretty under control. It's not an endless drinking and drugs fest. He does go to bed before midnight. He does know how to budget the money left in his account. He can take care of himself because no one else is going to. Except maybe his friends, but that’s clearly in the past because Bev’s decided to rip him to shreds like her burgeoning bisexuality has fuckall to do with his apparently obvious faggotry.

But everyone slips sometimes. Everyone’s gotta be a stupid reckless teenager sometimes. When better than when someone’s already ripped your life apart? Richie biked home just to pick up some cash, then immediately headed for Blue’s Bottle Store. All it takes is one immoral disinterested adult to buy him a forty. A town like Derry, that’s essentially every citizen. The only people Richie’s ever felt were human in this place are the others in the Losers Club. Too bad even they’ll have lines he can’t cross, and Bev has tripped them over them. 

Richie’s still pondering how he might never get to drink with the guys again when the guy who’d said sure comes out with a forty of Smirnoff. Richie thought he’d get something manlier like whiskey or bourbon, but it’s fine. Beggars breaking the law can’t be choosers. Richie takes the glass bottle from the guy and isn’t in the least surprised when he doesn’t try to tell him not to drink, to be smart. People in Derry don’t care.

He still doesn’t want to go home, or any place with too many memories. Going to the house had been terrifying. Stan’s had a key and been crashing in the guest room a couple nights a week for the last year. Richie desperately didn’t want to run into him, but it’s not like he could change the locks on such short notice. Not like he _would_. As brutal as things are at this moment, if Stan had to get away from his parents or from his own thoughts Richie’d take his hand and help him run. But he can’t stay there and provoke the gods into making them meet. For the same reason he can’t risk normal hideouts. He bikes for a bit more, steering one handed with the bottle tightly gripped in the other. He ends up in the park where rumour has it Darrell Smith sleeps on the bench a lot. None of them have ever come here. Homeless people freak Stan and Eddie out.

The first swig burns going down. It bores a hole right through him. If he was drinking with friends he’d have a chaser. Hell, he’d have cups, and music, and laughter. In lieu of all those things, Richie drinks another gulp. It must be coming in seven-o-clock now. The sky is turning purple, the clouds are getting grey. At the edges of the park the street lights are turned on. “Time for all the nice little girls and boys to be at home. Good thing I’m bad. Nasty. Bad to the bone. Oh, someone spank me!”

No one laughs at the dirty joke. No one beep beeps him, or tells him to shut up. It’s just silent. The wind through leaves, the occasional bird chirp, and nothingness. Silence is as bad outside as it is in his house when Stan’s not home. Richie has never gotten used to it, not since the first time they decided he didn’t need a babysitter, at nine, but the radio is an easy fix. But there’s no radio now, just the fucking wind and his non-stop thoughts. Hopefully the alcohol will kick in soon and that’ll all stop.

“What are you drinking, kid?”

Ah. Darrell, he presumes. Eddie’d be shitting his pants right now. This guy is in at least three layers of grimy sweaters, despite it being late August. Well, Richie doesn’t want to be alone in the quiet, even if that means weird semi-homeless guy. If he acknowledges him, odds are good he interprets that as an invitation. “Just vodka.”

“Nice,” Darrell says, staggering over.

“I have a knife,” Richie tells him. He doesn’t. He had one for like a week after Neibolt, then Ben saw it and had a panic attack and Richie threw it away. He didn’t put it away in his backpack and take it back home. He literally threw it and didn’t watch where it landed, to get it away from Ben faster. Anything to make his friends safe and comfortable. He’s going to miss them.

“I’m not going to take your vodka. I’ve got my own JD. I just like a drinkin’ buddy when I can.”

Richie shrugs. Fair enough. Basically what he wanted anyway. As long as Darrell knows not to try shit. Richie murdered a demon in a well, normal shitty people don’t scare him anymore. Except for how that’s complete bullshit, every single gay basher and bystander in Derry terrifies him. Which means every citizen in Derry terrifies him, because Derry is full of hate. Unless the world is full of hate, and Derry’s more normal than any of the Losers would care to admit. Richie holds the heavy bottle to his face and takes another mouth puckering drink to help him not think about it.

They drink together as the sky turns from dusky purple to black. The streetlights are far away enough that Richie can still see the stars through smudged glasses. Eddie or Stan would have snatched them off his head to clean them by now. Without them Richie doesn’t care enough to do it. He and Darrell keep up a stuttered conversation over the hours, both of them blurting out information and blathering replies to the other that they forget five minutes later. For all Richie knows he’s talked about the same things fifteen times. The Losers would tell him if he was repeating himself, but they’re not here. He’s doomed to forever be a drunken blabbermouth then, because they’re never going to be around him again, are they.

But it's not like he can do anything about it. There’s nowhere to go. Even if Derry had a second high school, that doesn’t mean the students there would be any nicer. He’d have to move out of Derry, just leave his keys on the kitchen table for Mom and Dad to find the next time they come home, some time next month. And where would he move? Pull a Bev and move to corrupting gay force Hawkins Indiana?

“I can’t go. What would be the point in trying to get away? I’ve got this,” Richie waves his sliced and scarred hand in front of Darrell’s face.

“I can’t see shit, kid.”

Richie’s not sure if that’s because of the darkness, or because Darrell’s been sporadically huffing glue along with the drinking. He continues to wave his hand. “It’s as bad as a wedding ring. It’s a _commitment_. Means in twenty seven years I have to be here, unless we want a child serial killer to do whatever the hell it wants. I might not ever want kids, but a hundred Georgies on my conscience? No fuckin’ way.”

“Wedding?” Darrell asks, somehow picking up on the least important part of the statement. “You got a bride to lift a veil and get a kiss from?”

“Wish I did. I’d love a kiss from them.”

Well hey, there’s a good way to teach sixth grade English grammar. Adjectives, conjunctions, and pronouns. Descriptors, joining words, and ways to get yourself kicked to death. Richie’s learned more than anyone else the difference between he, she, and they. The safe one to say, the subject of all his worst nightmares, and the cop out when he can’t quite force himself to outright lie.

“I had a wife. A beautiful bride. But a guy can find himself alone after he goes to jail for a few mistakes.”

“That bites. Fuck her though. Fuck her crocodile fucking face, am I right?” Like half the shit that comes out of Richie’s mouth, he doesn’t really mean it. He just is so used to saying whatever he needs to, whatever he can to distract people. Sometimes he’s not even covering his own ass. Sometimes he talks to make his friends feel better. Bill needs more laughs than Richie can count, he’s so serious now. Eddie needs a straight man -haha- to bounce criticism off of. Stan needs another voice to make him feel not alone and threatened. Ironic, then, isn’t it, that it was words that destroyed him. 

Three cheers to irony, Richie thinks, and tips the vodka to his lips again.


	6. Can't Scare Me No More

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another Bev chapter, so references to past sexual abuse. On a positive note, there's also crying and emotional catharsis?

Laying on her back looking at the stars, Bev is happy Mike followed her out of the Denboroughs and convinced her to come to his place. No one else could have managed to reach her, she doesn’t think. Maybe Stan. But she didn’t want to be around Ben or Bill, and she’s pretty sure Richie hates her so the only way they might end up together any time soon is if Richie challenges her to a knife fight. Eddie would have been worse than useless too, grating in a way it sometimes takes a lot to deal with.

Mike’s different though. He understands things the rest of them don’t. Lessons that maybe they’re learning late, or denying, he’s always understood. Family won’t always be there. Love can be rescinded. Some people will insist on believing the worst about you no matter what you do. There’s no cap on pain. 

He knows how to breathe when your entire body is made up of dejection. Bev needs that lesson, now. Bev’s lived with dread for a decade -bedroom doors started opening when they shouldn’t have around five- but dejection is different. It’s not terror made duller by constant presence, and the desperate looking for clues to sense when the danger’s reaching critical, and lying with a smile to soothe ruffled feathers for your own safety no matter how much you want to throw up. Dejection is knowing you’re never going to get what you want, no matter how bravely you fight for it. It’s eating when your stomach is full of rocks and it’s learning how to keep the urge to cry out of your voice in a casual conversation.

Bev doesn’t talk much, for the first few hours. She plays respectable for Mike’s grandparents, uses her manners and pretends her clothes aren’t wrinkled from sitting in a car for six hours this morning. Grandma Hanlon doesn’t do her the courtesy of pretending the same, but Bev accepts it. They’re harsh, but civilised, which is far more than Ms Kaspbrak can say for herself. The elderly Hanlons are the early to bed early to rise type, so dinner’s over by five and then it’s just one game of Scrabble before she and Mike are excused and can escape to the abandoned barn.

It’s not their best second home. Bill’s bedroom and Richie’s house are the winners of that competition, offering shade in the summer, heat in the winter, and electricity for tv and movies. Even when only considering outside venues, the quarry is great for swimming and as an excuse to legitimately see each other half naked, and the clubhouse is perfect for privacy. Still the Losers come here enough that Bev can see their detritus in every direction. Richie’s can of Coke with their shared cigarette butts. A back up fanny pack of meds and emergency supplies of Eddie’s. A weatherproof cooler stolen from Bill’s because the Denboroughs are never going to go camping again. A fantasy book with three different bookmarks in it, as Bill, Mike, and Stan read it at different rates. God, how is she ever going to stop loving them? She has to, the confrontation at Bill’s was proof enough that she can’t be Hawkins-open hearted in Derry, but is it even possible?

Mike opens the cooler and pulls out a plaid sleeping bag. When it’s unzipped it’s like a massive fluffy picnic blanket, roomy enough for four or five. He lays it on the pounded dirt ground and sits patiently, waiting to see if she’ll come join him.

Bev does. She sits in the v of his legs and reclines against him, back to chest. It’s only when their breath syncs and she loses her tension that the tears start to build up in her eyes. She’s ruined everything. She’s ruined _everything_ and she’s just so tired, and tomorrow she’s going to have to pretend that she didn’t, and three days from now she’ll be back in Derry High getting shit on by every girl in school. It’s just so much.

Mike holds her as she cries out all her excess feelings. The summer’s been a wild cap to an insane year. Explosions of blood and finally saying no more via porcelain lovetap and killing monsters and falling in love with six boys and a lesbian lover, there’s not a single thing about her life that Bev could talk to Aunt Margaret about. And Bev doesn’t regret most of her choices, but they just all show that she’ll never be normal, fit in. She’ll always be the loser. And if the Losers won’t love each other, she’ll always be the one with the most feelings. The thought is exhausting.

At some point Mike slouches back and Bev ends up on her side, head on Mike’s chest with an arm over his belly. She floods his shirt with her tears until her breath calms with the rise and fall of his body. She’s ready to talk for the first time since starting her breakdown. “I’m just so tired.”

Or not. The four words are the only thing that make it out before a sob falls out of her. A fresh wave of tears begin soaking Mike further. She ruined everything for nothing, they don’t love each other, and in twenty seven years they’re all going to die alone.

Not for the first time in her life, Bev cries herself to sleep. What’s new to the last year is that she falls asleep to Mike rubbing her back and when she wakes up he’s still there. She has someone to care about how she’s feeling. She has more than one someone, definitely all of the guys have helped her with at least one nightmare, and she’d be willing to bet millions that everyone has seen everyone wake up screaming at least once. That kind of support is worth everything. So yeah, she’ll walk it back, she’ll plaster over her mistake and figure out some kind of way to apologise to Richie for stating the truth. But maybe before she does, she lances the wound. Gets it all out.

“What’s that line that loving concerned parents use?” Bev says into Mike’s chest.

He doesn’t react to her suddenly being awake and talking without watery tears in her voice, just steadily answers her question. “Don’t know. Didn’t have them long enough to get to cliches. None of us have had the opportunity to meet that kind of parent.” 

“‘I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.’ That’s it. I was crushing on Robin, like we all do to each other. We have the entire last year, and everybody knows it, whether they’ll admit to it or not. I thought she’d ignore it, like we all do. But she didn’t. She refused to, and something so good came out of it. I had such a good summer, Mike. I thought I’d be miserable away from you all, but being summertime-loved by her was almost like being at home. There was love, and it was like being with you all. I just want all of you to refuse to deny it anymore. It’s so disappointing, and crushing.”

“You’re not scared?”

“We’re all going to die when It comes back. Maybe. Probably. Stop it or die trying. Can’t we be happy until then?” Half her nightmares are about them at forty three, dying in a myriad of ways. Even if they split up they’ll have to come back together then, but Bev doesn’t ever want to split up. She wants twenty seven years later to see them with kids and pets in a huge house and maybe a RV or a boat or some stupid tattoos. She wants them to all be able to finish each other’s sentences, even Ben’s research ones and Richie’s foul mouthed ones.

“Okay then. How about this? I love you, Beverly Marsh. I love you the same amount but for different reasons than I love Bill and Stan and Ben and Eddie and Richie.”

The question might be rhetorical but Bev’s going to answer just in case. “That's really great. I just wish everyone else was that brave too.”

“We can talk to them together. We can talk to Richie and Eddie and calm them down, and then we can talk about the rest of it.”

The next moment finds Bev on top of Mike, kissing him with the passion of finally having a confidante. She knows how he feels about her, she’s seen the expression occasionally on his face when he looks away from her, but it’s so much better to feel it through his mouth. His big hands frame her face as they kiss, and she never wants him to let go. Not unless he’s letting go to pull her shirt off. And isn’t that a wild thought, that all the things she’s been thinking this last year could come true with him?

Bev’s never had sex with a man before. Not wanted sex. She’s thought about it a lot, enough to know her father hasn’t ruined her like a nutcase in a V C Andrews book, fit only to be locked in an attic. But this is the first time a boy’s hands have been on her waist, clearly wanting to roam further, yet waiting for permission. 

She has to believe Mike would be this way with anyone he wants to have sex with, not just her. Not just because he knows. They all _know_. In the weeks and months of not leaving each other’s sides, of group trips to the bathroom and the pharmacy and grocery shopping, of staying out until midnight at the clubhouse, of sleepovers, of phone calls made in the middle of the night after particularly bad nightmares, a lot of secrets came out. They talk about her father as much as they do Eddie’s medical abuse, or Bill’s depression, which is to say not at all, those particular secrets too painful to go over frequently, but they all know. That they’ve never treated her as fragile -or at least no more so than Stan when he panics at being alone in the dark, or Ben when he freaks out about getting chased even if it’s only gym class- it’s the proof that Bev’s made the right friends. Greta and Natalie wouldn’t know for five minutes before they’d be asking faux sympathetic blaming questions. 

“Mike? Do you want to do more?”

“Yes. Do you? If you don’t it’s okay, I’m happy to do whatever you want.”

“Can we go into the field? I think it’d be nice to see the moon.” It’s one thing she never managed with Robin; having sex outside. 

“Yeah, okay. Sure,” Mike agrees.

Bev stands up so that Mike can stand up. He sweeps the whole bag under his arm and Bev follows as he makes his way out of the abandoned barn. With the sheep in their barn for the night there’s lots of open field to lay the sleeping bag on. The air is warm tonight, warm enough that Bev feels physically totally comfortable stripping to underwear and her bra. Emotionally it’s a little rougher. Everyone teasing with bodies at the quarry knowing nothing will happen is different than having Mike in his boxers in front of her, knowing that soon hands will be dipping into elastic waistbands.

Still, the idea of having Mike like she’s wanted so deeply for the last year is enough to have her baring Mike to the ground and crawling on top of him. Her confidence might be a little shaky, but she wants him, and the gentle way Mike’s touching her shows he wants her too.

They make out for a long time, the mild night breeze caressing their skin like they each have a hundred hands to touch each other with. It’s Bev’s new favourite way to have sex, she’s decided. Mike’s stiff against her. She lets him roll them over so he can thrust into her thigh as they move their mouths as one. There’s a deep warmth inside Bev, knowing she’s caused that. The feeling of his dick, and his directed want, and his hands on her tits, it all works together to make her wet and wanting. Wet and _ready_.

“Do you have a condom?”

Proving that this isn’t some dream or hallucination, Mike snorts at her. “No. Why would I have a condom? Until today, nothing was ever going to happen with anyone.”

Is this the universe giving her an out? Should Bev be happy it’s not going to happen tonight? “That’s okay. We’ll just touch each other.”

“Do you want me to go get one? Greg will have some.”

Mr and Mrs Hanlon employ several farmhands. Mike, though it’s not like he gets paid for his meat deliveries. No, his grandparents consider room and board as payment because they’re so penny pinching and tight hearted. Greg, Winston, and Felix all work daily too. Winston lives in town, but Greg and Felix have small cottages boarding on shacks on the edges of the property. It won’t be quick to go steal one, but it’ll be quicker than biking into town. If anywhere is even still open. Bev doesn’t wear a watch, she doesn’t know what time it is, but judging by the stars it’s getting late. 

“Yeah, okay.” 

She’s bisexual, she thinks as Mike slips on his jeans and sneakers and starts running down the field. This summer is proof of that, and she can’t let the possibility of flashbacks unnerve her from fifty percent of the population. She wants to be able to have sex with men. Especially since all her current crushes are men. This is happening with Mike despite everyone disappointing her, so maybe even if talking about group stuff doesn’t work she’ll still have one offs with the others too. Everyone interested in her and lying about their attraction to each other is the exact thing Bev talked to Nancy about not wanting, but in these circumstances she’ll probably end up taking the consolation prize. Except Richie, she’s pretty sure that bridge is burnt. Unless he does it just to prove he’s straight, which is a whole different set of problems. Would she let him, if it made him feel better?

Mike makes it back from Greg’s with three. Ambitious, considering Bev doesn’t know if she’ll be okay immediately or will have to warm up to it, but she can see why Mike would take what he’s given and not argue about quantity.

Bev undresses fully, lets her bra and underwear drop to glow white in the moonlight against the dark sleeping bag. Mike follows suit. Apart from the one time Richie drunkenly flashed them, it’s the first non-evil dick Beverly’s ever seen. Her body pulses with the want of something inside her, of him inside her, so she lays down once again and beckons for Mike to join her.

It’s not like sex with Robin. Mike’s fingers exploring her pussy aren’t the full act, but a means to an ends. Mike’s not pressuring her to get to that ends, Bev knows he’d stop in an instant, but until that ripcord is pulled he’s very obviously fingering her with the intent of getting his condom clad dick in her. She crooks her leg around him and pulls him in a little closer. She wants that too.

She doesn’t dissociate. It’s the best thing she can say about it for the first minute. A dick is bigger than two or even three of Robin’s fingers, the girth the summer has gotten her used to. The sharp pressure brings her close to a whole host of bad memories but Bev keeps her eyes open, focused on beautiful Mike Hanlon, the boy she’d throw a hundred thousand rocks for. She’d do it every day, like Prometheus, if she had to. And Mike holds still, perfectly still, and gives her the time and space to come back from the associations and let this start to turn into something better.

“Where’s the best place to touch you? Show me, please. Show me what you like.” It’s not the dirty talk Bev ever had in mind while fantasizing, but it’s probably what she should have realistically expected. They’re all virgins, after all, Richie’s stupid shit talk aside. And it wouldn’t be Mike if he wasn’t trying to help.

Bev moves Mike’s hand to the top of her pussy, the part that masturbation feels best with. She shows him how to stroke her, and her body starts to relax enough that he can move without it being a ordeal. And then it starts to get good. The fingers on her clit are better than the thrusting, no doubt about that, but they’re both sources of pleasure. As is the way Mike’s staring at her, like she’s the most precious thing he’s ever seen. 

Mike comes way before her. Bev kisses him through it, doesn’t let him think for a second he’s done a bad job. First times should be loving, comforting. Her second first time, her _real_ first time taught her that. Robin made her summer sweet, and Bev just wants the same for Mike and all her other boys.

Mike being Mike, he doesn’t let things stop there, like all the gossip from Derry High girls who actually have sex has lead Bev to believe is common. After he drops the condom to the sleeping bag he scooches further down and gets both hands on her pussy. Mike keeps up the technique she demonstrated, and adds a bit of his own fancy flair. Now that he has a baseline of what Bev likes, he can add on all the things he’s fantasized about doing to her in the middle of the night, or maybe in the shower in the morning. Eddie’s definitely a shower masturbator, but with Mike it’s harder to say.

Being outside grants a secondary privilege, as it turns out. Unlike every time Bev’s had sex inside a house, or masturbated, this time she doesn’t have to stifle her scream. The part of the field they’re in is far enough away from the main house that she can be as loud as she wants to be. Maybe Greg hears her, but it’s not like he thought Mike needed the condoms for a water balloon fight.

When it’s all said and done, Bev crawls back into the v of Mike’s lap. They tug the opposite corner of the blanket over their cuddling bodies and just sit together. It’s as nice in its own way as watching a movie with Robin was.

“Do you think we would still love each other if we hadn't nearly died together?” Mike asks.

Bev knows Mike has so many issues about being an outsider that they might never cover them all. Dejection, not dread, after all. She accepts him, and his issues, in the exact ways that everyone else accepts hers. But she’s not going to let him outsider himself in a relationship they’ve just started. “Does it matter? Think about what’s happened since then. We’ve been dating for a year already, the dying was just the beginning.” 

“You’re right. And I do. I love you, Bev Marsh.”

“Love you too, Mike Hanlon.” She honestly thought the words would first go to Bill or Ben, but Mike is just as worthy. Worthier, maybe, since he’s the one who’s here.


	7. Trophies In The Backseat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings for emotionally abusive/neglectful parents. The thing Bill's dad said? I grew up with a clinically major depressive mom, and once when my dad was sick and hadn't gotten out of bed for like 12 hours, she said that to me, that it'd be easier for me to find his corpse than her. It's the most fucked up thing anyone's ever said to me.

The phone rings at midnight. When the phone rings it’s always Bill's job to get it. His parents don’t know why Georgie died, or where -both nuggets of knowledge Bill would give his life to change or even pathetically just be ignorant to- but they know that one day a body might be found, and they’ll be called to claim it. Dad has told him he’s better prepared to answer that call than Mom is. It’s the sickest insult Bill’s ever received. However wrong though, he’s still the one getting up out of bed and answering.

“Hello Bill.” No one calls the Denborough house expecting to talk to his parents anymore. Oh, they might ask to be transferred, in which case Bill has to stomp through the house and try to convince whoever that the outside world matters, but it’s always ‘hello Bill’ unless it’s a telemarketer. 

In this case it is for him, though. It’s Bev’s Aunt Margaret. On the scale of no interaction -Richie’s- to bafflingly okay to chat with -Ben’s-, she ranks in the top percentile of the available parents. Bill would far rather deal with her upset late night phone call than Ms Kaspbrak’s.

“Is Beverly still at your house? Normally I don’t fuss much about curfew, but she did say she’d be coming home early enough to unpack and it’s after midnight.”

“She’s uh, n-n-n-not here? But I d-d-don’t think you should wor-worry. We had a little bit of a f-f-f-fight. So she’s pr-pr-probably blowing off some steam, biking around. Maybe a midnight jog on the high school track or s-s-s-something. I’m sure she’ll be home s-s-soon.”

“Did anyone leave with her?”

“No ma’am,” Bill lies firmly. It’s not a complete lie. Just because Mike left to chase her doesn’t mean she’s with him now. Even if she is, no good can come from Aunt Margaret waking up the Hanlons to interrogate them when they get up for the day in less than four hours. They’ll take it out on Mike, give him extra hours of tasks to complete. Bill’s not going to be the reason that happens.

“Well, thanks anyway, Bill. See you again soon, I’m sure.”

Bill hangs up the phone and goes back upstairs to his room. The hallway is silent. Neither of them call out to ask him who it was, phoning so late. Bill tries to stop himself from thinking about it too much. He just needs to tune out the silence until he can sleep, and then tomorrow he’ll get a loud dose of his friends and shit’ll be okay again.

Except now he can’t sleep. He doesn’t want to bike to the Hanlon farm for the same reasons that he blocked Aunt Margaret calling; he’ll inevitably wake up everyone with no guarantee Bev’s even there. But Bill can’t stay here, staring at the ceiling and waiting for a missing loved one to check in. He didn't even tell Bev’s aunt to tell her to call when she got back, so it could be hours between her being safe and Bill finding out. The idea is too much to contemplate.

Neither of his parents react when immediately after answering a phone call his next act is to go make a bunch of noise with his creaky dresser drawers grabbing a hoodie and sweatpants, then continue creaking down the stairs, only to make more noise slipping on shoes, and finding his keys to leave the house. Not that Bill expected them to care about their son leaving for a drug deal or whatever in the middle of the night. He could do anything and it wouldn’t matter, unless it was something Dad berated him for upsetting Mom with. Sometimes Bill imagines setting the piano on fire. It’d be mean. Cruel, even, to take away one of her coping mechanisms. After a year of being ignored it’s getting easier to care less about spiteful reactions. When Bill graduates he needs to leave, get the fuck out of Derry before he turns into someone Georgie wouldn’t recognise. How fucking funny is it that Georgie would understand him loving his friends a little too much but would probably hate him for being mean to Mom despite her last talking to him, count it, seventeen days ago?

Bill bikes to Bev’s using one of the shortcuts they’ve compiled over the last year. They all know how to get between each other’s houses as quickly as possible, as well as a few other staples like the high school and the clubhouse. She still lives in an apartment, but this building is far more upscale than the shitty place her crapsack father once rented. For starters, there’s a bike rack.

The furthest he can get inside Camden Apartments without being buzzed in is the lobby. Because this place i>has an actual lobby, not just an immediate hallway of doors with golden numbers. There’s two couches, and a coffee table with a telephone and a Yellow Pages and a cactus on it. Bill can’t go all the way to Bev’s apartment, can’t knock and let himself be invited in. If he has to talk to another stupid fucking adult in the next twelve hours he’s going to lose it, even if half an hour ago he wasn’t remotely mad at Aunt Margaret. But he can sit on the soft white couch and wait for Bev to come back. Because she will. She has to. Bill is not Stan, who can’t tolerate being alone, who practically lives at Richie’s because he needs company but can’t stand the company of his own parents. Bill can be alone, as long as they come _back_.

It’s close to one when Bev comes into the lobby. Twelve fifty two. An elastic Bill didn’t know was straining loosens tension in his lungs. His hands uncurl from fists, stop fiddling with the edges of his hoodie.

“Bill?” Bev asks like she has no idea why a friend disappearing for a day would disturb him.

“Your a-aunt called. She was w-worried.”

“Shit,” Bev swears, dropping into a slump on the couch beside him. “Why is she even still awake? I was up ‘til dawn every night all summer and she never noticed.”

Bill shrugs. “Time zone?”

“I didn’t mean to freak you out. I just needed some time with Mike. To figure out how to move forward from the shitshow.”

“Did he h-h-help?” Bill’s not jealous. He’s really not. Like he told Ben earlier, it has to be all of them. If Mike’s who Bev needed today it’s fine, because it might be him or Stan or Eddie next. Or maybe Mike will need him next. Who knows.

Bev’s turn to shrug. “He made me feel less guilty for having dreams.”

“Y-yeah, he’s good at that.” Mike’s the reason they’re all intending on applying to colleges. He truly thinks there’s a goal for all of them to achieve.

“I’m trying to not regret my mess, but I guess that’ll depend on how well I clean up.”

Bill’s not sure what to say to that. He can hardly deny that it’s a messy situation. Richie and Eddie are bound to spin out about this for very different reasons, and he’s not sure about Stan too. When you factor in Ben and his unmatchable love for Bev, maybe even not matchable for the other six Losers, things are about to be glass of milk dropped on the floor messy. But is it something to _regret_?

“Me a-a-a-and Ben kissed.” 

Bev twists on the couch to look at him. “Did you? Was it nice?”

“Yeah.”

“So I was the first two, but third time’s the charm.” 

Bill doesn’t want Bev to think she’s of lesser importance now. Bill loves her so much. He just loves five other people so much too. There has to be a way to make it all work. He’s already had too much taken away from him, the world can’t take the Losers. Any of them. “It would have be-been better with you there. Ben w-w-w-wanted you too.”

“Well maybe next time. Ben seems like a great person to be with.”

“We had sex,” Bill further admits.

“That's great. Was it fun?” 

Bev’s gentle question is not the reaction he’s expecting, which immediately makes him roll his eyes at himself. Of course she’s not going to act appalled. Seeing two male friends together was what started Bev in on this whole thing. 

“It w-w-was. I think it c-c-could have been more fun if other people were th-there.” If she can be bold, so can he. 

“Well, Mike told me to work on it. Dreams, and all that.” Bev scooches in closer and rests her head on his shoulder. He can see her red hair in his peripheral vision. January embers, Ben is right.

As much as Bill could stay here forever, he only has so long before his conscience starts eating at him. If Aunt Margaret was worried enough to call him, Bill doesn’t want to be the cause of prolonging that worry. He knows more than most how that feels.

“You should probably go up before your aunt loses all her marbles.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right, should go do that.” Bev sits up properly with a sigh, though she doesn’t push herself to her feet yet. “Bill? Thanks for this, for coming out here. I know I shouldn’t be happy that you worry, but it feels nice to have someone who would.”

Bill twists in for a hug. Bev smells like the farm, like Mike, not her normal bubblegum and Pert shampoo. Bill feels oddly happy about that.


	8. Walking All Alone, You Know It's Okay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has an ending now, folks! Huzzah! Three parts left!
> 
> Another Richie POV, so more internalized and assumed homophobia.

Richie wakes up freezing. Freezing, and with terrible acid reflux and sore bones, and oddly wet. It’s hard to give first priority to any of these problems, considering the way his brain is pounding in his skull, but Richie manages to open his eyes to begin piecing together the situation. His heavy eyelids raise to show him verdant green grass and a heather grey sky. So he fell asleep outside, and the sun hasn’t been up long enough to warm him up. That accounts for the wet back side of him too, he’s apparently rolled over at least once in the night into dewey grass. All the other problems, from headache to shitty taste in his mouth to burning chest, that’s all tied to one simple answer: he is hungover as fuck.

Guessing from sunrise alone, it’s about seven am. He twists his arm to check his watch, and it’s gone. Well, that’s understandable. Maybe Darrell stole it, the toll of hanging out with homeless addicts. Maybe Richie had a drunken moment of charity and gave it to him. Hell, maybe some stranger stumbled upon him passed out and kindly didn’t slit his throat, just took his watch when a wallet couldn’t be found. Whatever the case, Richie’s just gonna consider it a lesson learned. Or a side effect of drinking, maybe, because lesson learned implies he’d do something differently next time, and when your life implodes as drastically as his did yesterday what can you do besides drink?

Despite all the shit Bev has stirred up -and it’s not a small amount. It’s a mountain of shit, a fucking typhoon of shit miles over his head that he has no idea how he’s going to claw his way out from- Richie is a man of tradition. Can blame that one on the utter lack of family stability, probably. One of those important things is morning hangovers are meant to be spent with Eddie. His tiny friend is guaranteed access to aspirin, is funny -and provokable- enough that Richie can smirk through the pain, and gives a decent enough lecture on the health consequences of binging that it talks Richie out of the truly lamentable solution of going for the hair of the dog.

Richie decides while laying on the cold wet ground that he’s going to get the fuck up, get the fuck to walking, and go to Eddie’s anyway. Richie doesn’t have it in him to give up his friendships yet. He chose to fight It and potentially die when It made a compelling argument for sacrificing one of their number for the world’s safety. He got himself to the hospital when he broke his ankle freshman year and took care of himself when his parents didn’t come home for another week. Life is shit. That’s not a question, it just is. It’s the way you build makeshift solutions and deal with it that matters. He doesn’t know how to fix what Bev’s done. God knows he has no fuckin’ clue, since drinking himself to death didn’t seem to work. But if he’s not ready to walk away, that means he has to duct tape and spackle and bandaid something together. 

There are a few things he can do, probably. He can give everyone their space, make sure that regardless of Bev’s words no one thinks he’s gonna drop to his knees and suck some dick. That Richie would fucking love to suck any of their dicks is irrelevant. He can be persistently humorous and show them he’s no different, even if he is different. Most importantly, he can eat shit and not be a baby about it. Not over-reacting to their disgust is gonna be key. Whatever it takes to get them back to close-to-normal eventually, he has to try.

His bike is still locked at the entrance of the park, so he’s not down all his material possessions. Riding it while hungover is a harrowing experience. As Richie rides to the Kaspbraks trying his best to coast and not expend any energy pedaling, he begins developing anecdotes about the night he’s just had. Little bombs of humour he can use to distract Eddie from anything they shouldn’t talk about. If he tells Eddie at some point that Darrell told him he used a cat’s fur as a Kleenex when there was nowhere else to wipe his snot, Eddie will hopefully start squealing in horror and not think about his AIDS infested friend. He’ll alter the jokes later, polish them to gems that can affect each of the Losers. He knows everyone’s weak points, plus some shit like Eddie’s Mom jokes are just timeless. But before he tackles the group, it’s Eddie, and therefore an Eddie-centric set.

It’s been about two years since Ms Kaspbrak voluntarily let Richie in the house. He’s come in when Eddie’s opened the door. He’s been not immediately kicked out, only glared at, when she comes home from work and he’s there. But actually invited in? No. Richie’s quite sure she’d slam the door in his face. Lucky for him Eddie’s got a semi-accessible window. It’s a little high up, Richie has to balance on a discarded lawn chair to get to it, but it’s better than being turned away. Richie’s definitely not risking the front door today. If Eddie was still freaking out when he went home -because there’s no doubt in Richie’s mind that Eddie spazzed out at Bill’s yesterday after he left- and his mom saw her EddieBear upset? Eddie’s weak in an interrogation, falls apart like a packed cup of brown sugar. Ms Kaspbrak likely knows the truth by now, and will be Eddie’s fresh source of gay disease awareness. Richie will have to fight that influence every day, and do a better job than he’s currently doing about the unnecessary meds thing.

Even adding the time it took Richie to take the easiest path to Boyd street, it’s still early enough that Eddie will still be in bed. As Richie parks his bike where World’s Worst Mom is unlikely to see it, he starts brainstorming funny ways to wake Eddie up while remaining completely hands off. Eddie won’t want to be touched, and not in a funny ‘I’m going to touch you anyway’ way, in a last straw kind of way. Richie imagines for the next six months all causal friendly touching will be off limits, until they can trust him to not be a predator.

Richie’s long since figured out how to open Eddie's window from the outside. It means he doesn’t need to knock and ruin the morning surprise before carrying the lawn chair from the backyard to the proper spot. It means he doesn’t need to give Eddie the opportunity to bar him from entering. One of these days his foot’s going to go through the rotting fabric of the lawn chair and he’s going to break his fucking ankle, but that day is not today and he’s got bigger things on his mind.

Halfway through the window, despite best intentions and his gazelle-like grace, Richie sends a figurine flying. Eddie really should know better than to decorate the table directly under the window. Richie’s eyes track the action figure to its landing spot on the foot of Eddie's bed. Which is, hey, being shared by Stan. Apparently he didn’t go home last night, which is really common, but instead of letting himself into Richie’s, he came to Eddie. That’s fine. Richie can pretend that’s fine, and not because Stan’s OCD is likely going wild at the idea of so many contaminated surfaces. If it makes him want to cry, well, it’s fine. It’s the first reaction of the rest of his life, and Richie’s going to have to suck it the fuck up if he doesn’t want to get new friends. Or maybe just throw himself off the quarry properly, because like Derry could ever provide a second batch of friends worth half as much as the Losers. 

Stan’s always been a light sleeper and someone breaking into the room is more than enough to rouse him. He sits up and he’s shirtless. Richie’s surprised Eddie didn’t lend him pyjamas. It’s the kind of traditional gentlemanly bullcrap Eddie’s been trained to care about.

“Morning Rich,” Stan whispers. 

“Mornin’, Staniel,” he whispers back. Thank fuck for the low voices, because otherwise he thinks his voice would be wavering at getting a morning greeting. No matter how awkward and painful the next months might be, Stan still cares enough to say good morning.

Scooching to the edge of the bed, Stan pulls back the shared blanket. He pulls back the blanket and he’s naked. Stan’s doesn’t do that, doesn’t sleep in the buff. Richie has had experience with Stan’s overnight attire, Stan sleeps at his house like three, four days a week. He knows. Richie suddenly knows, and it’s insane and illogical and he’s got very little proof, but he just _knows_.

“You two did it. You fucked. You’re queers.” 

“I mean not totally queer. I like Bev. But a bit, yeah.”

Richie- Richie doesn’t know how to feel. Stan is pulling on clothes that Richie didn’t notice were folded on the armchair. Eddie is sitting up, eyes on the both of them. Richie’s- He’s- He’s bubbling with a hundred different reactions, and it’s a total fuckin’ mystery what’s going to come out of the pot first.


	9. Try'na Elevate My Heart Rate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise Wednesday update! Mostly because today is a national holiday in my country and I have the time to edit and post. A little because I feel bad about the cliffhanger. Sorry?
> 
> Chapter warnings for OCD brain spirals. Also more joking about homeless people.

Stan wakes up. That’s not unusual, Stan tends to wake up about fifty times a night. A traumatic need for companionship and being an extremely light sleeper aren’t the best combination, but he can’t change either factor, so he deals. He cracks open one eye to see what it is this time, and there’s a shadow in the window. Richie is breaking in. Ready or not, they’re doing this now. They’re saving Richie from his adult self, starting now.

It’s possible that Stan under the blanket is punching Eddie in the hip to wake him up so he doesn’t have to do this alone. Even before It, alone was never a good concept. Community was what made him want to love Judaism, despite the realities of his parents’ congregation. After getting separated only for the painting lady to gnaw on his face, alone isn’t really an option any longer. He’ll do pretty much anything to not be alone, even if it’s a ludicrous ritual to prove to the universe that bad things don’t need to happen. Ben’s done some discrete research and apparently the rituals are called OCD. Nothing will come out of it here, Derry therapy being as useless and withered as anything else Derry has to offer, but Stan will keep the phrase in his back pocket and will maybe mention it to student counselling once he’s at university.

“Morning, Rich,” he murmurs. Richie looks like he hasn’t gotten a minute’s good sleep. Stan’s seen him like this before, nights where his sleeping at the Toziers coincide with Richie having nightmares about going missing, and they meet in the kitchen at three am for milk and cake. He’s the lightest of sleepers, Richie not sleeping is enough to wake him up some nights. Stan can guess what kept him up this time, and he knows from experience that Richie doesn’t need loud voices right now.

“Morning, Staniel,” Rich says back. Yeah, he doesn’t sound right either.

Stan doesn’t want to start this conversation naked, so he gets out of bed to retrieve the tidy pile from Eddie’s chair. Unfortunately his nudity is enough to slice through the haze in Richie’s expression.

You’re gay, he accuses, and Stan’s hardly going to lie about it. He wouldn’t have lied yesterday either, Richie just wasn’t ready to listen yet. There’s only so much insistent best friend badgering Stan could do before letting him bike off to his own devices. Stan doesn’t feel like too bad of a person for that. It gave him the opportunity to settle Eddie, who was nearly as neurotic as Richie. And he feels pretty confident in the childlike wisdom of the rest of the Losers. Bev and Ben and Bill probably spent the whole afternoon writing love stories and poems to each other. Maybe they even rode down to the Barrens to get all their first kisses done in the location of Bill and Bev’s one off last year when they still thought Margaret Marsh was going to steal Bev away to Portland. Mike’s probably okay too. He’s somehow the most optimistic of them all, despite having one of the bleakest childhoods. Stan would bet it took him five minutes after Bev’s declaration to decide it was a good idea. Richie’s the last person they have to transition, and Stan has no doubt he’ll be the hardest.

“I don’t get it. I don’t fucking-” Richie storms the bed and shoves Eddie almost fully back into the pillow. “I oughta kick your fuckin’ ass.”

“Why are you wet?” Eddie demands in high pitched outrage, which is either entirely the wrong priority or a great way to calm Richie down through classic Kaspbrak-Tozier bickering, it remains to be seen. 

“I slept in a park last night.”

“What? Oh my god Richie, why? You’re wet and you smell terrible. Did a dog piss on you?”

Richie shrugs. “I can neither confirm nor deny the presence of dogs. I don’t remember, I was busy getting blackout drunk. Meanwhile you two were getting _gay_ together, something Bev accused _me_ of.”

“I- I- I can't talk about this with you right now. You’re disgusting!”

Stan can see the shutters in Richie’s eyes slamming closed and could throttle Eddie for the worst possible word choice he could have made. This time the punch is not subtle or under the blankets. In part to show Richie he doesn’t agree with the words. Another part just because Eddie’s stupid and has pissed him off. “What he means is could you please go have a shower and stick your clothes into the washer? Because you smell. When you come back we’ll have a conversation about who’s gay with who. Okay?” 

They’re lucky that Richie’s obviously supremely hung over. He capitulates quickly, where normally he’s bullheaded about simple shit just for kicks. “Yeah, okay, I guess. I am really cold.”

The moment Richie’s out of the room Stan whirls on Eddie. “Disgusting? Really?”

“He doesn’t care if a dog peed on him! That is completely disgusting!”

“Remember what we talked about yesterday. Are you gonna be the cruel shitty adult version of you who gossips to his friends about how he’ll die of AIDS, or are you gonna be a kid with friends who matter to him?” Stan’s seen it in more adults than he can count, the slow warping until you forget the good things. The joy that used to comprise you is all worn away and only regrets and secrets and cruelty are left. 

“Yes, I understand, and I still want that, but a dog might-”

“Eddie, I will kick your entire ass, don’t think I won’t.” Worst case scenario and it wasn’t exaggeration, Richie didn’t touch them, and he’s throwing his clothes away. The relative safety of the dirty situation pings less catastrophisation than the obsessive thoughts of Richie breaking and leaving them. Leaving him, alone. Stan can’t have his OCD proven right like this. Eddie’s going to have to fucking stop, now.

The warning must come through because Eddie’s mind skips onto the next track and he shuts up about the stupid dog. He gets out of bed and rifles through his closet for the day’s clothing. Stan watches him get dressed because he can do that now. He’s allowed to notice elastic gliding up asscheek to rest just above the swell of buttock now.

“I should put some clothes in the bathroom so he has something to change into. Otherwise he’s just going to streak back here, and god help me if my mother sees him.”

Stan can't imagine this will end comfortably. Eddie and Richie are about as different in body as Ben and Bill. This wild orgiastic crush has conditioned Stan into not having a type, beyond maybe girls with red hair, the only girls that matter. Stan likes all the disparate qualities of his friends. There's just no arguing that Eddie’s jeans and polos might fit Richie.

“And I’m going to go make some toast,” Eddie continues. “There’s no way he doesn’t have acid reflux right now. He’s not going to come to terms with anything if he’s hung over and grumpy. Do you want jam or peanut butter on yours?”

“Peanut butter.” If he eats jam covered toast he’s going to start worrying about cavities much quicker and he’ll have to leave to brush his teeth. This situation is precarious, Stan can’t afford being called away at any time. He could come back to Eddie and Richie literally fist fighting. If the noise attracts Eddie’s mom he’s grounded for sure, and that’ll mean figuring this all out gets delayed by weeks.

Eddie’s back with the toast before Richie’s out of the shower. He comes with a wide plate with three jam slices and one PB laid in a grid, nothing touching. Stan takes his. Eddie takes one, and leaves the plate of two on the armchair. It’s too early to be awake for good, in Stan’s opinion, too early to really enjoy breakfast, but he can appreciate Eddie making it for him. It’s a sign he’s not spiralling into paranoia and regret, if he’s able to cook and sit and eat.

Richie comes into the room quietly, no doubt not wanting to attract the attention of Eddie’s mom. Stan would like to avoid that too, actually. The longer Eddie has to shore up his defenses before he has to face her the better. Richie locks the door before he even begins to speak.

“Don’t I look simply splendid? Edward lost my top hat, but I’m sure Spiffings the butler will run me one down soon.”

Richie is joking but Stan is fucking dying. Eddie’s a monster, a complete madman. He’s given Richie shorts. His shorts, the shorts that already ride up on him. On Richie they’re about two inches of cloth before his entire long thigh shows. Richie’s the hairiest of them all, and the black hair stands out against the summer tanned skin. Eddie cares that everyone avoids UV light but he only actively gets on Stan’s ass about sunscreen, everyone else just gets raked over the coals for choosing skin cancer. Richie’s skin is the shade of partial nudity at the quarry five days a week.

“Oh, jammybread. Thanks, Eds. You always know what an honorary Scotsman needs,” Richie says, lifting the plate so he can sit in the armchair facing both of them on the bed. “I took some aspirin from your cupboard, by the way. So you know when you need to reorder it by the pallet.”

“Did you put your waxed cup in the garbage? I’m not touching your garbage, so-”

“No, because I cupped my hand under the faucet and drank that way, like a normal person.”

Stan rolls his eyes at both of them and takes another bite of his toast. Usually right now Stan would be sharing a commiserating look with Bill about Eddie and Richie’s constant bitching, but under the circumstances it’s probably better he’s not here. Six was too many people to talk about being gay around, but hopefully two will be minimal enough for Richie to brave it.

Halfway through Richie’s second slice of toast he finally brings it up. Stan was willing to wait as long as he had to, but he’s glad it’s this soon. “So while I was busy trying on and rating a homeless man’s various coats-”

“Oh my god, Richie-”

“You two were... what? Spanking the monkey beside each other in the same cage? Playing knights dueling swords? Slobbing knob? Being fudge brothers?”

“Holy fucking shit Richie, are you serious right now? You are so fucking-”

Stan speaks up over Eddie. “You spent a lot of that time in the shower wondering what we were doing last night?”

“What is with you and Bev and everyone just, just accusing me of being- Like _that_. I don’t get it!”

There’s a lot of ways Stan could answer that question. Before he has a chance to say any of them, Eddie’s jumping in.

“Stan and I had sex. And I feel like I’m going to fucking vomit because I’m saying it while my mom is getting ready for work in the kitchen, but it’s true. So you tell us the truth when you’re ready. We can hang out all day waiting.”

Richie scowls and shoves a corner of the toast in his mouth. He chews obnoxiously, clearly aiming to piss Eddie off. Stan knows he must be close to explosion, because Stan is. But Eddie reigns it in, miraculously. And his patience is rewarded. Richie’s expression turns from taunting to frustrated to solemn over the course of his last five bites. By the time the toast is done, Richie’s scratching at the place his watch should be. Stan wonders what happened to it, but it’s obviously not the time to ask.

“So Bev was right. I’m. You know.” Richie says it like each word is wrapped in barbed wire. 

“Bev was right about all of us.” Stan affirms. They _all_ can like both, she’s right. He has to say it matter of factly. If he acknowledges Richie’s fear he’s as good as confirming he should be scared, at least in Richie’s mind.

“That's unfortunate. Not gonna be a gay haven like Hawkins, not here.”

“Oh yeah. Because we were so applauded and living the high life as the jew, the black kid, the slut, the stutterer, the hypochondriac, the fat kid, and the trashmouth. It’s definitely the queer vibes that are going to throw the town off.”

“Guys? You guys?” Eddie says, pitch rising quickly. “Can we talk about this in ten minutes, when she’s gone? I really honestly think I might vomit.”

Stan can do that. Of all their parents finding out, Eddie’s would easily be the worst. Stan would rank his second, for the level of disappointment they’d try to swamp him with, but that would just hurt, it wouldn’t be scary like Ms Kaspbrak would be. His toast done and hands checked for crumbs or grease, he grabs a few random comic books from Eddie’s milk crate of them. He tosses one at Eddie, one at Richie, and keeps one for himself. They can wait.

The edict of nothing gay until Ms Kaspbrak leaves for work lasts about two minutes. Richie sits up from his slouch in the armchair and crosses his arms at Stan. “You’re clocking me. You’re looking at my legs.”

Stan would like to see any heterosexual woman or gay man fucking not look at Richie’s mile long legs. He wants to suck hickies all over them, until Richie has a garter belt of bruises to show off at the quarry. Maybe he wasn’t being subtle, he hasn’t even turned a page of his comic, but come on. Look at them.

“All this time you’ve been clocking me. I thought I was bullshitting myself, seeing things I wasn’t really because I needed hope, but it was real and you never said anything.”

No. Stan’s not having Richie be mad at him because no one was willing to risk coming out to compliment him. It’s been a year of cycling through who gets to flirt and whose job it is to ignore it, and they’ve all been playing it very carefully. Richie could have easily said something too, reciprocated any one of the approximately hundred times Stan’s felt like he’s semi-subtly hit on him. “How would that have gone over? You weren’t all smiles and puppies when Bev said something, and she had experience of group relationships. I, any of us would have had even less to offer.”

“It’s not like any of us were ready for it either,” Eddie adds, quiet.

Rather than acknowledge that yes, it is just as much on him as any of them, Richie asks “what do you want to do to my legs?”

Part of Stan is annoyed that once again Richie can't take responsibility for his actions. The vast majority of Stan, however, is excited by this fledgling dirty talk and where it might go.

“I want to bite them all over. Cover you in marks you need to show off.”

“Well that’s kind of Freudian of you, or something, after all the PTSD, but I like it. Claiming back your teeth power or whatever. I’m here for it. You sucking a hickey into my inner thigh and giving me a blowie? Yeah, that checks off some boxes.”

Richie pulls himself to his feet. The tight polo shirt is askew, showing a strip of his belly. He doesn’t think to fix it, instead going for the rising hem of his shorts. He tugs one of the legs hard enough that the elastic waistband slides down his pelvis almost all the way to his treasure trail. It’s _obscene_. Seriously, Stan would like to see a Catholic nun look away from the show Richie’s stretching is putting on. Eddie, notably, is not looking away either. 

It’s not until Richie grabs his shoes from the small mat tucked under the desk breakers-in use as a climbing post that either of them react. 

“Where are you going?” 

“I know you two crazypants kiddos. You’re not going to do anything with fluids just spilling out all over the place. I’m going to go buy some condoms and when I get back one of you is going to answer the front door because if Eddie’s mom does I don’t know if I can stave off the temptation to show her what I just bought. Maybe whisk her off to her bedroom for a whirlwind of delight.”

Stupid mom jokes aside, Stan wonders what their next interaction really will be like. In a battle between Richie’s constant desire to horrify and piss off Ms Kaspbrak, and his desperate need to hide any trace of homosexuality, does he out himself to enrage her, now that he knows he won’t lose Eddie’s friendship over it? Does he take up a new role: instead of being British Chap he’s Flamboyant San Francisco Gay, all the things screaming ‘shoot to kill’ in the minds of gun toting Derry citizens? If there’s anyone who could stick to a bit despite life or death stakes, it’s Richie. He fucking cracked jokes in Neibolt, when Stan was busy trying not to hyperventilate so much he passed out and fell face first into the greywater and tower of garbage.

“You don’t have to go. Eddie bought some from the gas station-”

“You didn’t use the one I gave you for that girl at the arcade?” Richie interrupts.

“-because he didn’t want Keene to see him buying them.”

“Makes sense. That gross old fuck has always been a rival for my quest to win Eddie’s mom’s heart.” 

“Shut up Richie,” Eddie curses.

Richie falls back into the chair he just vacated. He’s been honing his leer since they were preteens, he’s always had a trashmouth and a trash attitude, so the look he gives Stan is well developed. “Well, come on. These thighs wait for no man.” 

Stan falls off the bed to his knees and knee-walks over to Richie. Stan parts his legs to fit between them, then puts his mouth on Richie’s left. He licks a stripe from knee to very high hem, and feels a tingle rush down his body. He wants to do it again.

“You don’t want to brush your teeth first?” Eddie asks, horrified.

Stan would like to, it’s true. But this seems like one of those time sensitive things, the very reason he placated his future self with PB not jam. His brain’s not fully screaming about cavities yet, so it’ll have to wait until after his seduction.

“Eddie? Eds? You know I love you and Stan and your crazy bullshit. But there are slim future pickings when it comes to situations in which someone’s going to take the time to polish their molars before hooking up. Right now, for example. Stan’s gonna worship my thighs and then he’s gonna put a condom on me and he’s gonna suck my dick. Maybe. We haven’t decided yet. Maybe we’ll just make out in this weird and exotic position. Who knows? But it’s not gonna involve Crest.”

Eddie throws his hands into the air. “Okay, you two eat each other’s foods from each other’s nasty faces. I’m going to brush my teeth like a civilised human being and put the plates away before we get ants.”

Stan can’t give him too much shit for it. Eddie’s got a different diagnosis -a real one from Ben, not the hundreds of lies Ms Kaspbrak sells to Eddie’s doctor- than him, but they overlap a lot. He can put it off while Eddie can’t, and there are some things Eddie can tolerate that Stan can’t. They understand each other.

Stan doesn’t hold back just because Eddie’s not present. The idea of sex in groups of three or four or more soothes the part of his brain that screams obsessions and insists on compulsions about his autophobia, but it’s unrealistic to think they’ll always be able to be in a group. Stan has to enjoy sex in pairs too. He licks a few more long stripes up each of Richie’s legs, stopping only when his mouth feels dry. He pushes his fingers through the short curly hair and tugs the pelt up with pinched together fingers. The light pain makes Richie grunt. 

It takes Eddie a little longer to return than Stan expected, not that he’s spending a lot of effort timing him. Two regulation minutes to brush teeth, give or take five minutes for the fifth shower in twelve hours. If things go as well as Stan hopes they do, the Kaspbrak water bill is going to skyrocket. That or Eddie stops showering before and after sex, but Stan puts better odds on the water bill. It makes sense though, when he leaves the bedroom door cracked a little rather than slammed and locked. His mom must have left for work, necessitating Eddie pretending he’s going to miss her, and that he’s going to follow all her safety precautions, and take all his pills. How accurate that statement is is on a daily sliding scale, which again, Stan can’t judge. Sometimes it’s harder to fight your brain than other days.

“You two look good,” Eddie comments.

“We three could look good, get over here. And drop the towel on the floor and let me see your dick, this is not a beauty salon.”

Eddie crosses to the chair, his leg tucked between Richie’s and Stan’s side. “I am kissing you against my best interests, Richie Tozier, I hope you acknowledge this.”

“At worst, I taste like strawberries. I think you’ll live, you little bitch.”

It’s a terrible angle to watch Eddie and Richie’s first kiss. Most of what Stan sees from his position on the floor is the underside of Eddie’s arm, and a bit of his jaw. But the sounds they make are gorgeous, and a tendon in Richie’s leg twitches. Stan’s not going to move and disrupt them, he’ll just have to hope for a better vantage next time. 

By the time they’re done making out, Eddie’s towel has slipped. He scoops it up from the floor instinctively, never one to allow clutter, though he doesn’t put it back on or toss it into the hamper. Instead he says “I don’t want to receive today. I don’t want to get too loose.”

“I don’t think that’s how that works, but I don’t know enough to dispute it. We’ll get Ben to research it. If he’s down for researching anal sex. But you said Bev was right about everyone so he should be.” Richie thinks about his statement for a second, then adds “I bet he’s the first one to get with Bev. They match so well.”

Stan rolls his eyes. His friends are stupid and incompetent almost all of the time. “What Richie is trying to say is no one ever has to do anything they don’t want to do. Sex is about wanting. So if you don’t want to, you don’t have to. But don’t say no with an excuse. It’s not inherently damaging to the body to be gay or bi. You need to remember that yourself, because your mom’s going to keep talking badly about the homosexual menace, and it’s gonna hurt more now that it’s about you.”

“Yeah. Been there, done that. It sucks.”

Stan can feel a tense moment building. Eddie’s done a lot of inadvertent harm to Richie, and it’s probably not the last time he’s going to get called out on it. Add Eddie’s mercurial mood and self-esteem based on his current position with his mom, and this whole meeting could escalate into a fight. After all, Richie’s first instinct after finding out that Eddie’s bi and hiding it was saying they should brawl. 

Lucky for them all Richie’s deeply skilled at reading a room and knowing people’s tics. He can tailor humor, targetedly piss off the people he doesn’t like, and deescalate drama if he cares enough to. “Okay, I’m at peak limit of mushy emotional shit right now. Less talky talky, more sucky sucky, am I right?”

Stan could do what Richie wants. He’s never blown anyone before, of course, but he’s thought about it a lot. But Richie’s kind of annoying, and even if Stan sides with Richie this one particular time, he still doesn’t want to give him what he wants. It sets a bad precedent in this relationship, to give Richie everything he wants. If Stan had had better boundary setting skills in kindergarten maybe Richie’d be less crazy now.

So he doesn’t blow Richie. He sucks, and licks, and bites, and to be perfectly honest there's a real chance Stan wouldn’t have to do more. The hickies are making Richie moan in a way Stan’s only ever heard on the other side of the guest room wall. He remembers sleepless nights of analyzing and cataloguing those moans, wondering if different intonations meant Richie was trying different things or just that he was closer or further from orgasm. He remembers playing with the fantasy of Richie knowing he was performing, since Richie’d long had the knowledge that noise in the middle of the night would wake Stan up. These moans have a storied history, these moans made Richie the closest Stan thought he’d ever get to knowing what sleeping with any of the Losers would be like. And now he’s got them two feet away from him, flowing over his head like the gentlest of waterfalls. It might be in the running for favourite sound ever, and that includes the clamouring of feet when the Losers stormed in to scare away the painting lady.

At some point Eddie retreats to his bed. Stan worries for just a minute that they’ve somehow triggered something negative, that he’s going to have to stop playing with Richie to talk Eddie out of a panic attack. Then he sees Eddie curl his hand around his dick. Eddie’s not retreating, he’s getting a better view for a show like fighting about the best row at the multiplex. Stan gets it. He’d want to watch this, if he wasn’t a part of it. Richie’s so hard and twitchy and ready to boil over at any moment.

Stan likes the idea of hickeying Richie to orgasm. He really does. There’s always a chance that people are different in bed than they are in everyday life. For all he knows, Ben’s into BDSM or Mike likes corsets. But going on the assumption that Richie with his dick out is no different to dick tucked Richie, his trashmouthed friend is going to be perpetually horny and ready to be inappropriate. And what’s better than getting Richie off to biting the first time around? Getting Richie off to biting a few days from now, when he’s already mottled with bruises of different colours. And that means he needs a different game plan for tonight.

Stan thinks for a moment about what else he wants to see. What else from this year of deep bonding and lustful yearning does he most want to act on? He runs his fingertips as lightly as he can following the hemline of Richie’s shorts. He wants Richie to be thinking about the tiny shorts he’s wearing, and how little they protect him, and how everything’s going to feel when they’re gone.

The feather light touch extracts a different sort of moan from Richie. It’s a build up of sensation, not the sudden onset. Eddie must be attracted to the gentleness because he moves to stand behind the armchair. He starts with rifling his hand through Richie's still damp hair. Then he plays with the collar of Richie’s borrowed shirt. It takes Eddie really bending forward to get his hand down the neckline. Stan can’t see exactly what Eddie is doing, just the outline of his arm under the fabric, but it must be good because Richie is moaning in a third new way.

Stan could kneel here mapping the sounds Richie’s making now to memories of sounds a wall away from him, try to unravel what he might have done all those nights. Or he could live in the present, and begin the plan he’d just thought up. “Richie I want to try something. It’ll be really good, I swear.” 

“Is it blowing me? Because really, that would be swell.”

“No, it’s not. But you’ll like it just as much, I hope.” Last night, the second time they did it, after Ms Kaspbrak was settled in with her programs and they wouldn’t have to worry about interruptions, Stan had taken his turn. It was equally good. He can’t say for certain if everyone in the Losers club will switch back and forth, but he knows he will. There’s good, in letting someone inside you like that.

Stan doesn’t get to it immediately. First he helps Richie draw the short shorts all the way down his football field length legs. It’s like unwrapping a present real slow, peeling off the tape rather than ripping the paper. Even once Richie’s lower half is bared, Stan takes his time. He half crawls up into the chair to suck a hickey onto Richie’s lower belly, right where a shitty low quality tattoo would be. 

Eventually though, Stan settles back to kneeling on the floor, nothing of them touching. Only for a moment, then he’s manhandling Richie. Richie’s always been a combative little fucker, Stan’s seen him wrestling someone more times than he can count. This might be the first time ever that Richie gets hands laid on him and doesn’t try to squirm out of them. Stan drags Richie to the edge of the seat and drapes one of his legs over his shoulder. 

“Eddie, could you pass me the stuff?” Stan could have gotten it himself before positioning Richie, but better to have Eddie directly involved. Plus it’s nice to show off a little. He liked when Eddie was watching him before, this is just another nice image.

“Yeah. Here.” 

Is it Stan’s imagination, or is Eddie’s voice husky?

There’s no way that Richie washed to the level that either of them did yesterday. One could argue his reason is because he’s sane, or because he doesn’t understand the importance of hygiene, but regardless of what’s right, Stan is still who he is. Richie is not perfectly sterile, and Stan loves him but that's what the gloves are for. Stan pulls them on one by one and makes sure there’s no air pockets. He coats the blue nitrile in lubricant and runs his index finger down the crack of Richie’s ass. Even his butt is a little hairy. He looks like more of a man than Stan ever will. As long as he doesn’t start with all the bad traits of manhood, it’s hot.

Richie takes the first finger beautifully. Like maybe he’s done this before, to himself. Stan’s imagined Richie doing that to himself. Stan wonders who Richie’s spent the most time imagining fucking him. If it was him. Logically Stan gets positive points for only being a bedroom away most nights, but negative points for being finicky. People don’t tend to think neat freaks are accessible in bed. He wonders if this is the kind of question they can ask each other now, or if it’ll still be taboo because they’ll be trying to have an equal relationship and implying someone’s more fantasy worthy messes that up.

Stan’s so intent in fingering Richie and the way his pelvic muscles twitch that he didn’t even notice Eddie breaking away to get a condom. He only looks up when Richie’s groaning turns garbled. 

“Holy shit, Eddie.”

Eddie’s gone and taken advantage of the slumped position Stan’s put Richie in, with his back mostly unsupported by the seat and his head resting on the top of the backrest. Eddie’s gotten Richie to tilt his head back just a little more, and taken his glasses. He’s making Richie blow him upside down. 

Richie, once again the master of reading a crowd, catches in the way Stan’s hand stills that Stan’s equal parts turned on and concerned. He’s not even looking at him, can’t because of the way Eddie is fucking his throat, but he knows Stan’s worried for him, that this is too far for first times. He takes the time to flail a double thumbs up without emptying his mouth to speak. As intended, Stan feels reassured and goes back to pumping two fingers in and out of Richie. 

A major wrench in the plan to fuck Richie comes when he does. Orgasms, that is. Stan’s not expecting it, and barely gets out of the way of the flying ejaculate in time. He’s delighted in seeing a best friend -a boyfriend?- enjoy himself fully and orgasm, but Stan has to assume he doesn’t want anything else inside him. Stan mentally sighs and resigns himself to jerking off in the corner. Seven is an uneven number for coupling, chances are it’s not going to be the last time Stan doesn’t get to finish inside someone. They’ll all take turns, no doubt. The mental voices worry he hasn't done enough, that to get the group love ending Stan wants he needs to do more. Make Richie feel as gay and in love as possible. He does his best to ignore them. He refuses to turn sex into a compulsion. There’s already too many wrapped up in it, the showering and the condoms. Stan’s not going to give it more.

In the end it’s not up to him. The second Eddie comes into the condom impaling Richie’s throat, Richie pops off Eddie’s dick to look at Stan. “What are you waiting for? Come up here. Get way deep. Fuck my lungs, why dontcha.”

If Richie wants to be overwhelmed with cock Stan certainly isn’t saying no. He scrambles to his feet, impatiently sets up his condom and gets to thrusting. Richie continues with his direly hot gagging and sucking noises. Maybe one day, when he’s at his personal pinnacle of sane Stan will be able to do this without a condom, but that day is not today. He doesn’t need the wet of spit on him anyway. The warmth and suction is more than enough to get Stan to crest the wave of orgasm within minutes.

“Rock paper scissors for first shower?” Eddie asks.

“What the fuck are you talking about? I just showered. You just showered.”

“We just had sex?” Eddie informs Richie archly, like he wasn’t there.

“Yeah. I blew you, into a condom. You’re fuckin’ pristine, I could return you to Bed Bath And Beyond without a receipt.”

“Spermicide can cause skin irritation, Richie! Everyone knows that!”

Richie grabs his hand and tugs his hand through it. “Oh my god you crazy asshole. Jesus. Whatever. You go shower, I’m going to have a smoke.”

“Do _not_ smoke in my room, don’t you know anything about second hand smoke-”

“If I didn’t five years ago I do now, because you never shut up about cigarette ingredients-”

“Stan, can you help me here? This goliath is being completely-”

Stan starts to let the noisy bickering wash over him the way it has for years. Everything is going to be okay now, he thinks. Unless something drastic happened with the other four he doesn’t know about yet. But barring that, Eddie and Richie are back to normal, with the fancy new addition of liking boys. They haven’t let the sour taste of adulthood ruin their inner joy. It’s everything Stan could have hoped for.


	10. If I Am A Killer Too

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No content warnings this time around. Ben's wholesome!
> 
> One more chapter and it's done, done, finally done!

Ben wakes up to the smell of pancakes wafting through the house. Dad never knocks on his door to tell him to get up, not even on school mornings, but he does make waking up pretty irresistible. If Ben doesn’t get up now while he's cooking, Dad will take any leftovers with him to the art gallery.

This morning though, that’s not the only reason to get up. He needs to start phoning his friends and arranging a meeting. Ben spent half the night thinking and Bill is right, the seven of them need to all be on the same page. They need to talk about their love, no matter how unhinged Richie and Eddie and even Stan and Mike might be. It’s ten. Dad will be leaving for work in an hour. Everyone else Ben can call after he leaves, but Mike will need as much time as possible. 

“Good morning,” Ben says, padding to the kitchen in just the boxers he sleeps in. His parents don’t believe in air conditioning, so the less clothes he layers on the better. 

Dad pours him a glass of milk in response. “They’ll be ready in a minute. So. What in this vast world are you going to learn about today?”

“Non-nuclear families, I think. Alternate relationship structures.” And he won’t even need to go to the library to do it.

“Right on. Educate yourself and prosper, bud.” 

Ben excuses himself for a minute and goes for the living room phone to get a hint of privacy. Dad can most likely still hear him, but he probably won’t ask for details when Ben goes back to the kitchen. 

Ben has the number of the Hanlon farm memorised. He knows neither Mike nor his grandpa will pick up, they’ll be busy in the fields along with the other farmhands. “Hello Mrs Hanlon?”

“Yes, speaking. And this is?”

Both of the Hanlons have known Mike’s friends for a year now. They’re occasionally over for dinner, and they stop by the front to say hello before going to the abandoned barn every time. Mrs Hanlon knows who he is, she’s just endlessly petty. Ben doesn’t bother to rise to the bait, just says, “could you give Mike a message if you see him before I do? Tell him to come to Ben’s house. Thank you.”

Ben also has the numbers of four of the stores Mike delivers meat to. He calls them each up and rattles through the same speech. By the time he’s done, Dad’s put his pancake on a plate, along with a few cut up strawberries.

Ben enjoys his breakfast. He chit chats with his dad, eats a bountiful plate, and manages to not turn mean with impatience and anxiety. Finally the man leaves, and Ben can start running down his friends.

“Eddie’s house. Featuring the best prices on pharmaceutical stock this side of the Atlantic. Or Pacific. Whichever works better. I don’t have to think about geography for two more days.”

Ben’s heart soars as he recognises the voice. If Richie’s at Eddie’s, maybe they worked things out yesterday.

“Oh, and Benston Hughes? I’m gonna suck your poetry writing brains out of your dick today. And if there’s a Russian operative bugging this phone because Cold War antics, yay, tell Gorbachev I’m sorry, but I prefer blondes. Well, sometimes.”

“Richie? Are you okay?” Ben shoves out the words. He’s half hard in his newly put on clothing just from the proposition, delirious from the idea, but he’s also worried his friend is having a mental breakdown. He half expects Richie to just start giggling manically. 

“Oh yeah. Apparently when Bev said her Hawkins friends were all bi and we are too, what she meant was no seriously everyone’s goddamn bi, and in love with each other. I’ve seen the light, my man. I’ve seen it, and I want to see more.”

Ben cranks hard and manages to get his brain back on the rails after the catastrophic mental image of Richie blowing him. “Can you and Eddie come over?”

“To yours? Yeah, I’ll pass on the message. To Stan too.”

“Great. I already called Mike, now I’ll just have Bill and Bev.”

“Yup, that’s the lot of us. See you soon.”

Ben goes for Bill next. He’s an easy one. Bill’s the only one to ever answer the Denborough phone, and he has almost as little interest as Stan in sticking around his house. They use it as a meeting place pretty regularly, but he never seems happy there. Leaving for the Hanscoms might be the highlight of Bill's morning.

Mike knocks on the door when Ben’s two digits into Bev’s number. Ben puts the phone down to let him in and get him a glass of orange juice to boost his energy after a morning of farm work and delivering, then goes back to the dial pad. 

Margaret Marsh answers, which is not ideal. She’s one of the Loser parents Ben finds most unpredictable. She does things on wildly different ends of the spectrum, from essentially adopting a teenager and moving to a new city for her, to pulling Bev away from her friends the whole summer without even considering a staying in a guest room situation. Ben and Bill both would have hosted her, with a semi legitimate offer of parental supervision to boot, even if Richie couldn’t have offered the same to a wary aunt, only a room. It’s even less ideal when Ben learns that Bev was out until one am, and Margaret’s not happy about the breach of curfew. Ben starts begging, not in the least bit ashamed. The conversation he’s dying to have cannot happen without Bev there. She’s the only one he knows for sure is on his wavelength, though Bill is basically a guarantee, and Richie seems pretty into it now too, at least the sex aspect.

Ben’s not sure if it’s the awkwardness that has her caving, but she gives in, and agrees to pass on the message that Bev should come over as soon as possible.

“So you want to do this, huh,” Mike comments after he hangs up the phone. He doesn’t elaborate. He doesn’t need to.

Bev was the only Loser it was safe to give his poems to. Doesn’t mean Ben didn’t write some for the others. He had to, he needed the outlet. Ben’s bursting with his love for all of them. Sometimes he imagines it’s literally in his skin, love crammed into every cell, and if he was skinny and handsome he’d have less love to give. It makes him feel better.

“I can’t think of anything else we can do,” Ben answers simply. There’s no other way for this lust to not destroy their hard earned friendship, beyond agreeing that there’s feelings in every direction. They just must.


	11. Collection Of Hearts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warning for references to sexual abuse, medical abuse, and neglect.

Not long after Ben gets off the phone with Ms Marsh the noises of three idiots repeatedly honking their horns get louder and louder, presumably as they get closer to the house. The noise crescendos then stops, only to be replaced with the equal or greater noise of Eddie, Richie and Stan fumbling their way into the house. They’re laughing and bitching at each other like it’s any other day. It’s nice to see. Mike was the most worried about Richie and Eddie. How could he not be? Yesterday's outbursts were so true to character, it was hard to imagine either of them finding their way out of their turmoil. Either Stan’s a miracle worker, something happened before Stan showed up, or they both got struck by lightning. Whatever the cause, Mike will take it. Cautiously. In a place like Derry you can’t get complacent, when you’re expecting that you’re in the clear is when you’re in the highest level of danger. That the danger is simply Eddie and Richie’s gay panic doesn’t make it any less of a risk.

“What is with those shorts, man?” Mike can barely look away. The pair is like three sizes too small, they look like Richard Simmons had a laundry accident.

“See! It’s not just me!” Stan swears at Eddie. 

Mike wants to know what’s left Richie looking so haphazardly slutty, but Ben butts in to ask if they’ve eaten and the moment is lost. Richie begins to explain the jam toast he had in detail, like a sommelier going over the notes in wine.

Ben being a wonderful host -hippie parents having taught him all the means of comforting guests without the tension of formal etiquette - he’s busy in the kitchen getting everyone juice when Mike hears the next noises. He looks out the door’s window to see Bill wheeling Silver up the sidewalk. Mike kicks the guys shoes out of the way so he can open the door to greet him. Mike’s struck by the thought of a hello kiss, of just being able to do that whenever he wants. Saturday mornings at the bakery having fresh hot doughnuts for breakfast, when someone climbs in late at the clubhouse, in a truly alternate world where he walks up to someone’s locker at Derry High. It’d be nice. But they need to hash things out before Mike can just grab one of them and assume it’s what they want. So he sticks to a plain hello. And by the time Bill’s parking his bike on the porch beside everyone else’s, Bev is visible at the end of the street. Mike lets Bill slip past him as he waits for her.

“Morning, Bev. You. You okay? Everything okay?”

“Well, my aunt is really pissed I was out so late. If it wasn’t for Ben being a giant teddy bear to deploy at adults I wouldn’t be leaving the house. But I’m happy we had sex. And it didn’t trigger any nightmares. So yeah, I’m okay. Thanks.” Bev kicks her kickstand out and steps away from the bike and into him. She hugs him and Mike puts his arms around her, smelling her short rosy hair. She’s the prettiest thing Mike’s ever seen.

The hug breaks and they go into the Hanscom house together. The room tenses as Richie leaves the living room to walk up to Bev. If there’s going to be a fight today, the ignition point is going to be Richie and Bev confronting each other and spurring on taking sides. Mike doesn’t think he has to batten the hatches, Richie seemed pretty chill coming in with Stan and Eddie, but you can’t always be sure. Bev and Richie are pretty abrasive with each other. Usually it works for them, it’s funny, but it can also make arguments way worse.

“Hey. So at first I was really pissed at you for pointing out my secret to everyone. But it’s been pointed out to me that I’ve been a complete fuckin’ hypocrite because I’ve been wanting literally any of you assholes to say you wanted me, and how could anyone without talking about that goddamn secret. So sorry, I guess.”

Stan rolls his eyes. “It’s also been pointed out that Bev wasn’t only talking about him.”

“Yeah, she really wasn’t,” Eddie agrees. That confidence seals the deal for Mike. Something happened with some combination of Richie, Eddie, and Stan. Mike can envision Ben being a safe outlet for Richie and Eddie too, but he would have said something as soon as Mike got here if he’d done anything with either of them.

“Look. I don’t regret saying what I said. What I saw Steve and Jonathan and Nancy have looked really nice, and I wanted it. And I thought we could have it, because everyone’s been wanting the same. But I’m sorry it hurt you.”

It’s not the best apology in the world. It puts it on Richie for having feelings instead of on Bev for crossing a line. But Mike can understand. It’s hard to apologise when you don’t feel like you’ve done anything wrong.

“How about everyone come get a glass of juice and we can go sit down?”

Five minutes later sees them scattered over the various furniture of the Hanscom sunken living room. Eddie takes the middle seat of the three cushion couch, Stan on one side, Mike on his other. The love seat fits Ben and Bev. Richie and Bill are on the carpet between the two couches, crosslegged. It shows off a brutal amount of Richie’s thighs. Mike can’t help but notice the circular bruises. 

“Let’s g-g-go over the facts. Make sure we’re all on the same page. We’re all b-bisexual,” Bill starts them off.

“We’re all in love with each other,” Bev states. 

“We’ve all either done something with someone, or want to soon,” is Richie’s contribution. Mike’s dying to know what that means. Did Bev have a conversation with Richie about what they did in the field? What combination of the neurotic three musketeers did something? 

“We. We all want to date?” This time it’s Ben who’s risking everything by asking the tough questions. Except he’s not, because it’s beyond obvious that the answer is unanimously yes.

“Is there anything else specific we need to talk about, or can we just be dating now?” Bev asks. “I’d really love to just be dating now.”

Figures that it’s Eddie who straightens his spine and opens his mouth to throw a wrench into the works. “On the way over here Richie was horrifying us with a story about a jizz sock under his bed. I would have hoped this would go without saying, but if something one of us does makes you want to come your face off, please respect yourself enough to use a tissue, not dirty laundry.”

Mike can’t help the laugh that burbles out, matched by over half the Losers. Of all the myriad of actual real problems their impossible relationship is going to have, Eddie cares if they mop up with a sock.

“Oh, Spaghetti. It’s going to be so fun making you dirty.”

“You will not, ever, Trashmouth.”

Bev speaks up. “Okay, actually, on a more serious note-”

“I am totally serious!” Eddie protests.

“I don’t think I want to have sex in my bedroom. Like ever.” 

Mike can see how that would draw bad comparisons. Not that he didn’t already, but a fresh wave of hate for Mr Marsh makes Mike wish he was dead all over again. At the very least in jail, not just run off. But Bev dealt with it, continues to deal with it, in the way that best helps her, and it’s not his place to decide she’s doing it wrong. 

“Yeah.”

“Sure.”

“Of course.”

“Not really up to us to decide where you have sex, I don’t think.”

Mike’s proud of everyone’s reactions. Not that he would have expected anything different. They all know each other’s soft spots by now, the unmentionable topics and mental health problems and garbage parenting. They all know that when a person gets hurt, that person is allowed to decide what to do about it. 

Stan speaks up next. “If we are talking about, uh, limitations? I guess? Eddie and I are uh, currently only able to have sex with condoms. Maybe one day we’ll get over it, but we can't promise anything.”

Bev shrugs. “Trust me, I’ll only be having sex with condoms too. Boy sex kind of demands that.”

Just what Mike needs, a reminder that while he was forelorn over the rest of the Losers, Bev was out there having girl sex for two months. Mike’s not sure if he can handle her developing her summer photos. It’ll make the mental image even more specific. 

“My special issue is that I have to break up with Eddie’s mom,” Richie announces. “She’s going to be so sad. But it wouldn’t be right to be with both of them.”

Eddie lashes out his foot and kicks Richie in the side. “Shut up about my mother, jerkwad.”

“Is anybody going to tell anybody?” Ben asks.

“Aunt Margaret can’t find out. She’ll think I’ve gone hypersexual to cope with the past and send me back to therapy.” 

Maybe in another state that’d be okay. Helpful even. But according to the stories an upset Bev first shared with Stan and Richie one midnight, then let them pass on to the rest, the therapist has the same seeped in nastiness that all adults get here in Derry eventually. Mike fears for the jaded assholes Mr and Mrs Hanscom will some day be. He’s not sure who or what will break their hippie spirit, but something will. That or they’ll be arrested for weed possession because the cops here are absolutely that petty. Bev’s experiences are why Stan won’t risk talking, even now that Ben’s figured out his diagnosis. 

“The day my mom finds out is the day I’m kicked out. She’ll take a few hours to try to convince me to live a healthy lifestyle and once she can’t I’ll be dead to her.” Eddie’s face looks like he can’t decide if that’s good or bad. Everyone else in the room would let Eddie crash with them in a hot minute if it would get Eddie out of her clutches, but same as Bev not pressing charges, you gotta let victims decide what they need for themselves.

“It’ll be just another choice of mine my parents hate. I don’t want to give them more,” resignation is Stan’s strongest tone, even if there’s some frustration and sadness in there too.

Richie snorts. Funny how he can make an expulsion of air sound bitter. “Who’d listen?”

Bill sighs. “Yeah.”

Ben follows up his question with his own negative. “I don’t think we’re making a bad choice but it'd be too weird. There’s free love and _free love_ with my parents, you know.”

“I think Grandpa would put a bolt gun to my head if he found out I loved a bunch of white boys. And girl.” Grandpa and Grandma barely tolerate his friends when they visit demonstrating their best manners, targeted enough by Derry civilians to not trust anyone anymore. Mike knows it’d get much worse if romance was involved.

“So it’s settled. A Losers club secret.”

“Better than the last secret,” Eddie states. Eddie still lives with the negative effects of that secret, and never being able to justify hanging out with people who broke his arm to his mom. Mike’s caretakers are overbearing in a different kind of way, but he likes to think he understands.

Stan takes a sip of his juice then says “well, I’d like to officially state, now that we can be blunt, that you’re all extremely hot and I’m in love with you all.”

It’s the twentieth century update of an old fairy tale; lust overcoming social disgrace to grant everyone their princes. Not that anyone will ever make a Disney story about them. It’s all been a bit bleak to animate and market to six year olds.

“So what do we do now?” Ben asks.

“We’re still friends. It’s not like we have to jump into a fourteen legged centipede fuck. We can just... have sex sometimes, now that we know we want to.”

Mike understands what Richie is saying. He gets why he’s trying to hedge his bets, still seeing himself as the one with the most to lose. Richie’s dramatic like that. It’s not like Mike doesn’t want to be friends with them anymore. Mike just has no interest in going to the quarry right now, or the arcade, or any of the normal friend stuff they do. Mike had sex with Bev last night, and he wants to do it again. He wants to have sex with all of them. 

“Yeah. Or alternatively, we could play a spicy party game, like Spin the Bottle or something?” Mike can’t imagine going home tonight having not kissed or touched all of them at least once.

“You know, the idea of Truth or Dare used to make this ball of terror throb in my chest. Like I’m honestly surprised It didn’t find a way to use it against me,” Richie confesses. “But I think I’d be okay with it now.”

“How about we play a round? Not with dumb stuff, just relevant to now stuff. Get to know each other better,” Stan suggests.

“Who’s g-g-going first?”

“Ben’s house, let him have the honour.”

Ben looks around the room from his seat beside Bev. He narrows in on Richie with the titular question. Kind of him, to not give Richie any time to build up anticipatory anxiety. Whatever he asks, Mike is sure it’ll be something Richie can handle. Ben is the nicest of all of them, that’s for certain.

“Truth.”

It’s not the option Mike would have guessed of Richie. Trashmouth Tozier is definitely the one of them to take on any gross or dangerous task without blinking. But then again, they’re not playing a real game of Truth or Dare, are they? They’re doing this to further things. Richie’s making a point, picking truth.

Apparently Mike wasn’t the only one to be interested by Richie’s mile of thigh. Ben thinks for a second before saying “why are you in such tiny short shorts?”

Richie rolls his eyes. “That’s not a truth, that’s just an explanation. Eddie put my jeans in the wash, and I borrowed something. Boring.”

Ben takes the criticism well. He rolls with it and alters his question. “Okay then, did you wear them to turn Eddie on, and would you wear anyone else’s clothes?”

“Why? You want to see me in Bev’s dresses or something?” Silence resounds through the house. Not just from Mike, who hadn’t really thought about it before but is now liking the mental image, but silence from everyone. “Hold on. You fuckers really wanna see me in a dress of Bev’s. Wow you’re kinky!”

“I’m not sure they’d fit, but I’d share,” Bev says.

“They’d fit. The hemline would just be short,” Stan says, dreamily.

“Not that any of your kinky fucks asked before you added it to your spankbank, but sure. Wrassle me up some fishnets and a bra and call me sugartits, why not?”

Mike has never been more pleased that Richie’s orientation issues have never vented themselves through aggressive overcompensating masculinity. He’s never been a shithead to women, or acted like Bev has any different skills than the rest of them. In the privacy of the barn, or Bill’s bedroom, or Richie’s own house, Mike can imagine Richie actually following through.

Richie asks “Mike, truth or dare?”

Mike considers his options. How can he best prove something? If he has something he wants to say about the seven of them he’ll just say it. “Dare.”

“Show Stan your legs. He’s into that shit.”

“I can’t blame him,” Bev comments. “You could have three people grinding on your leg in a line and still have enough room for more.”

“Yes, thanks. With your continued support Beverly, I just might make Miss Teen America. But Mike has actual muscles from lifting wheelbarrows and shit.”

“That d-doesn’t give you thigh m-m-m-muscles, i-idiot.”

“I’ll do it.” Ben’s house isn’t as hot as the sun in the field, but Mike will still be happy to lose some clothing.

Mike stands and without shifting, unbuckles his belt and drops his jeans. The sight of him in white Y front underwear is nothing they haven’t seen at the quarry over the last year, but it feels so much different now that they’re looking. Stan and Eddie have a good view of his ass, Richie and Bill are about face level with his dick, and Ben and Bev can see everything. Even sitting down again it feels like Richie just cursed them all with Stan’s apparent fetish, because literally everyone is looking at his legs. He’s never thought about biting before, really, but seeing the hickeys on Richie’s thighs Mike can’t help but imagine all of them making a mark.

Going so early in the game, Mike’s got practically everyone still available to choose. He twists to his left and asks Eddie “Truth or Dare?”

“Dare.”

It’s an interesting choice for Eddie. Mike would have guessed truth from him. But maybe he thinks Mike is more safe for a sensible dare over Richie or Bev. Eddie’s wrong. Mike’s doing this for the good of the group, and because there’s a horny voice in his head complaining that they could be playing Spin The Bottle right now. “Kiss someone you haven't kissed yet.”

Eddie scans the room, not, Mike notices, looking at Richie in front of him or Stan to his left. He stops at Ben. “When was the last time you brushed your teeth?”

“Eds,” Richie groans. “We already talked about this.”

“Fuck off Richie! I don’t count it as seizing the day if I get someone else’s sunflower seeds stuck in my teeth,” Eddie snarls.

Mike smiles a little. Nice to see that the dynamic hasn’t changed between friendship and relationship.

“I mean about a half hour ago, after brunch with Dad? But I can go again,” Ben offers, as accommodating as ever.

“Absolutely not. Eddie needs some, what did the article call it? Exposure therapy?” 

“Says the boy who lost his mind when his entirely gay friends told him he was gay too,” Eddie retorts.

“Stop it, b-b-both of you. Stan, is this an issue f-f-for y-you too?”

“Less than Eddie. But yes,” Stan admits, not that any of them are shocked to hear it. Bill knew to ask, after all. Stan and Eddie are near identical in some ways, while polar opposites in others. Eddie might never leave his mom’s house, while Stan might never talk to his family again once he goes to university. But when it comes to sanitization, they’re mirror images.

“That’s fine. We just get Eddie to tuck some of that dentist recommended gum in his fanny pack,” Bev says.

“Trident?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen those ads.”

“Gum is actually pretty bad for your jaw. It-”

Stan softly kicks him, more of a bump of their feet than anything else. “Stop it. They’re trying to help.”

Eddie sighs. Like it’s a great concession he says, “brush after every meal, and I’ll pour some Listerine into a plastic mini bottle for my fanny pack.”

“Maybe a canteen,” Bev suggests. “I think we’re all going to be wanting to kiss each other a lot.”

Ben is the second shortest one in the room. Together they look kind of adorable. Maybe Mike will feel differently if he ever sees them doing something more extreme, something like the jerk off fantasies he has, but their kiss is more munchkin-esque and cute than sultry. Still, Mike watches avidly. 

Eddie is obviously feeling his share of embarrassment and wants to turn that on another. When Bill asks for a truth, Eddie says “have you ever played with your ass?”

Bless Big Bill, and his ability to constantly be the bigger man, the one they’d all follow into a house of horrors. He takes Eddie’s question at face value, answers as calmly as a few of them need him to. “Yes. A b-bunch actually. Once you s-s-s-start doing it, there’s not really a r-reason to s-stop. It just a-a-adds to the repertoire.”

“As fellow ass blaster, I appreciate that.” Richie holds out his fist to be bumped. Bill rolls his eyes but complies, meeting him knuckles to knuckles.

Mike’s never done it. It’s not that he thinks it’s bad or gross or something. It’s just that in his fantasies he’s always the one fucking, not getting fucked. Being on top is what’s hottest to him. It’s good to know he has at least two boyfriends up for it. Based on the deeply suspicious expression he has on his face, Eddie knows more than he’s willing to admit to as well.

Surprising literally no one, Bill asks Bev which of the two she picks. Upon hearing truth, Bill follows it up with “What’s the weirdest place you’ve ever had an orgasm?” 

It’s another sexual question, but Mike can tell it’s not vindictive, a question for getting the heat off of him. It’s something Bill genuinely wants to know, and Mike can't blame him. Who in this room doesn’t want to know the answer to that?

“In the middle of a mosh pit at a rock concert.” Bev answers.

“Excuse me?” Eddie demands, the sound of it overlapping with Bill’s “What?” and Stan’s “Really?”

“That’s fucking amazing, holy fucking shit,” Richie says with a delighted giggle.

“So, Stan. Truth-”

“You can’t stop there, Beverly. Every story weaver knows details are what delight a crowd,” Richie says, full of faux comedic wisdom. Or maybe not so faux. It’s not like they’re not all very aware Richie can talk his way through any situation. Stan assigned him as sentry against Mr Marsh for a reason.

“Robin and I and a friend of hers went to a concert together. It was this punk band she really liked, Kingdom of Empty Pockets. We all dressed up in punk clothes. I had this knotted up shirt on that I looked really good in. We took a few pictures in the hotel, I’ll show you when I get them. We kissed on the floor and nobody cared, everyone was an outsider already anyway. And then it got to be more, she started rubbing me, and yeah. That’s my weirdest place.”

Richie nods. “We’ll work on the level of detail, you can never fine tune a story or joke too much. But solid first pass, I’d say.”

“I’ll give detailed detail when you do, Tozier.”

“If you think that’s not a deal, you don’t know me.”

Mike, for one, looks forward to the day he has explicit phone sex with Richie, thank you.

Bev too, asks a probing sexual truth of Stan. “Have you ever jerked off to the idea of the seven of us in one bed?”

“Of course I have,” Stan answers succinctly. “Maybe I tried not to, to not cross fantasy with the reality of midnight Monopoly and knowing bike paths blindfolded with my hands tied behind my back, and individually wrapped bags of allergen free trail mix. But at some point you give up. You let your mind think what it wants to think.”

Stan’s not only talking about sex, Mike’s sure. He’s got a lot of obsessions and compulsions and only so much willpower to fight them. 

“Well that's not very much detail either. Come on guys, how do you expect to pass senior year English if you can’t write evocatively? Stan, what’s your best group fantasy? Is it more leg porn?” Richie inquires.

“We’re at the quarry, all clean in wet translucent underwear, playing shoulder wars. Bill topples and swallows water the wrong way and Eddie has to give him mouth to mouth and it goes on too long and suddenly we’re all fucking on the sun-warm boulders. The middle explanation for why it happens isn’t very fleshed out, but the sex is nice.”

“I’ll give it a B minus. The see through undies painted a solid image, especially with Mike in his underwear right now, but ‘we’re all fucking’ isn’t specific enough.”

This time Bill’s punching Richie’s shoulder, not bumping his knuckles. “C-c-cut it out. I think that s-s-sounds r-really good, Stan.”

“I didn’t say I _wouldn’t_ take all six of you to pound town on the rocks, I’m just saying-”

“I’ve thought about that too,” Mike admits. Having gone to the quarry to swim every few days the entire summer, how could he not occasionally imagine sucking a dick under the blazing hot sun?

“Yeah. Me too,” Ben says. “It’s kind of hard to not think about it.”

Bev laughs. “Raise your hand if you haven’t thought about sex at the quarry.”

All hands stay down.

“Maybe we could figure out a way to do it then. If we have someone on watch, just in case?”

“Logistics later. We’ve got one last player for this round,” Eddie says.

Stan turns to Ben, the last one to be unbothered. “Truth or Dare?” 

“Dare.”

“Compose a love poem on the spot for one of us.”

Ben thinks for a moment. They wait quietly, even the usual motormouths. You don’t rush genius, and poetry is Ben’s genius as much as trivia memorization is Eddie’s.

“They said ‘slice your hand and we’ll save the world some day’.   
I cut  
Not telling them I was already flayed open  
And it was the holding of bloody hands that stitched me whole.”

After a brief hesitation to make sure Ben’s not about to compose a second stanza, they burst into light applause, Richie adding a “cool, Ben.”

Mike certainly can’t say he feels any different than Ben. He doesn’t know how they’re going to fight It yet. If the pattern holds true they have almost thirty years to figure it out. He just knows it’s worth it, all the terror and violence, to have met them all. No matter what happens next, today or any other day, Mike will go through it with the Losers by his side. That's worth anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that's it, that's all, folks! I might dabble in this 'verse again some day, but for now I have many other WIPs to add more words to. (And jeez am I grateful to be able to listen to new songs, finally)


End file.
